Suddenly A Ringtail (2020 Rewrite)
by Nerd of Camelot
Summary: A teenage girl, a new dimension, and a whole new family. When Sophie finds herself as Sly's great, great, granddaughter, she must go through many trials to prove her worth as a Cooper, but when she does... She'll have earned those stripes on her tail. [Rewritten for your reading pleasure. Cross-posted on AO3. Rated for safety.]
1. Prologue: Snatched

**A/N: **Welcome, welcome! To any new readers, I hope you enjoy what you're about to read. To any readers returning from the original, I truly hope that you agree I've done the story better justice this time. And to you both, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for reading (hugs).

* * *

_Prologue: Snatched_

As much as it irks me to admit it, even to this day I'm still not sure how exactly it happened.

Allow me, briefly, to set the scene as I recall it.

I was 16 years old, home alone on a Saturday, and lounging on the couch in my dad's seat while I played Sly 3 on my old, _old_ PS2. My dad's seat was the best one on the couch―it had the best view of the TV, the most comfortable cushion, and the less uncomfortable of the two armrests to lean against―, so it stands to reason that that was where I would be holed up for what was sure to be a long few hours before either of my parents arrived back home from work. I was expecting them back nearing six or seven, and it was only barely noon. I had the entire day to myself, and, frankly? I was in the market for a free day where I could relax and just play some games until I felt up to doing my Geometry homework.

Now, the thing about my trooper of a PS2 and my pre-owned copy of Sly 3, is that both of them were prone to freezing up at odd intervals, with or without the intervention of the other. Sly 3, in particular, was guilty of randomly freezing, and if nothing else both had fostered a much more obsessive method of saving my progress.

At this moment, one or the other decided it was right about that time, and the game froze. Sometimes it would unfreeze on its own, others I would have to reluctantly press the reset button in order to fix it. After a long moment of waiting, I sighed and stood, picking my way across the short expanse of living room between myself and the PS2. Kneeling before the thing, I had only lifted my hand to reset it before everything went black and I felt everything pitch sharply to the left. Then I felt nothing.

When I opened my eyes, my first thought was that I had no memory of closing them. This was not terribly uncommon, I supposed, as I often had strangely realistic dreams and woke from them unsure of when I fell asleep.

The second thought to enter my mind was that something was very, very wrong, and that thought only cemented itself as I finally got my bearings and realized I had no idea at all where on Earth I was.

The ceiling above me was that nasty popcorn crap you find in older houses, littered with water stains and interspersed with some distinctly _not _promising cracks. The bed beneath me was far too big and far too soft. It was all very distinctly unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

The thing is, back home, I had slept on an old, fold-out cot (by choice, as it left more room for other things and could be easily packed away when I needed to clean) and this was definitely not that cot. And _also_, with permission from my parents' landlord, a friend and I had painted the ceiling in my room with a mural of the night sky that we routinely touched up and had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars to… And you can't paint even half-decent murals on popcorn ceilings.

Reaching deep within myself for some of the unnatural calm I had learned from watching my mother work retail, I slowly sat up and took a better look at the room around me.

"Oh," A voice said nearby, as I was gazing uncomprehendingly at the bare, cracked plaster wall opposite me, "I think she's awake."

I had just scarcely begun to turn to see who had spoken when, quite suddenly, someone was standing before me. "How are you feelin', hon?" She asked, and she was not the one who had spoken first.

For a moment, I could only stare, dumbfounded. My first rational thought, staring at her, was that she _had_ to be in a fursuit. Except, really, I'd never seen an elderly mouse fursuit before, and the eyes had far too much depth. And the hair piled into a bun on top of her head was all-too natural.

"Um." I managed, weakly, as I attempted to process the fact that I was face-to-face with a rather kindly-looking, elderly female mouse. "I'm okay, I guess."

She nodded in a sagely sort of way, reaching out somewhat before drawing her hand back a little sheepishly. She'd probably intended to feel my forehead―but seemed to sense that touching me may not be something I was alright with. I appreciated that.

"... Where am I?" I finally asked, deciding that anthropomorphic mouse-grandmas were the least of my worries, considering I'd woken up somewhere _other_ than my living room or bedroom.

"The Happy Camper orphanage." The first voice said, a younger, not-so-kindly mouse stepping into view with crossed arms and an unimpressed frown and drawn eyebrows, "Somebody brought you 'round last night, asked us to take care of you. Only told us your last name was Cooper. Just who are ya, girly?"

That gave me significant pause. Me? A _Cooper?_ At the Happy Camper orphanage? What kind of bizarre dream was this?

I knew I wasn't able to hide my confusion, and who could blame me? Everything that had happened since I woke up here was like consecutive punches in the gut―I was having trouble processing the information I was receiving at all. Making sense of it was a goal I would not manage just yet. But, thing was, I had to give her some sort of answer. Just staring at her in perplexed silence wasn't going to get either of us anywhere.

After a long moment of going ahead and doing the staring thing, I managed to work my jaw open and summon my voice. "I haven't the foggiest clue," I said, "Aside from being pretty sure my name's Sophie, nothing you're saying rings any bells for me."

Chancing it while they exchanged a concerned look, I glanced down at myself and only just barely managed not to shriek when I realized I was, currently, quite fuzzy. But, if nothing else, the sight of gray fur and a twitching, striped tail served to drive home the whole "Cooper" thing.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

This was fine.

I was apparently in the universe of Sly Cooper.

Cool.

No way at all that _that_ could go wrong. No way at all.

Ha.

"He said it could be possible you had amnesia," The younger woman said slowly, drawing my attention back to her, "Something about a gang attacking your house and knocking you unconscious? Does that sound familiar?"

"A…" I trailed, brows knitting together as I become only more confused, which I hadn't really thought was possible at this point, "A gang." I said. "Um. Yeah, no? I don't remember anything about any gangs or break-ins or anything else and frankly I'm starting to freak out a little? So yeah probably got amnesia that's cool, okay, I can work with that…"

Now, the panic that crept into my voice was not a result of realizing I had amnesia, but it was not hard to play it off as such as I trailed off and swallowed hard, wrapping my arms around myself.

Both of the mice nodded.

"Okay then, hon, don't strain yourself." The older said with a kind smile, patting my leg very gently, "We'll bring you up some food soon―you just let us know if you remember anything."

The younger gave me a half-smile, seeming to become a little less unkind now that she had it in her head I was amnesiac and, apparently, the victim of a gang attack.

And then both left.

I sat on the bed for a long moment, half-hyperventilating, and eventually managed to calm my breathing.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

I was a Cooper. I was in the universe of Sly Cooper.

This was fine.

I could do this.

I could stick this out until I was able to figure out a way to get home. That wouldn't be so hard. Right?

… Right.

I heaved myself off the bed once I felt truly calm again and decided I may as well get a good look at the room I was apparently going to be occupying for now. Who knew how long I was going to be here, after all? I'd need to get acquainted with my surroundings sooner or later.

The walls were barren, as I've mentioned, with only one decrepit bookshelf with a few books on it pushed against the wall next to the window. A closer look showed none of the titles were of any interest to me. That was disappointing―if nothing else, I'd been hoping I could read something while I was waiting for food, and then maybe when I could steel myself enough to leave the room I could go looking around.

The room was… Bigger than my room back home, and another look around showed several bedframes piled atop each other in the far corner, and several mattresses next to them. A spare room, maybe? One they'd used in the past, clearly, but not one that was currently in-use.

Now, I'd never been in an orphanage before, so I wasn't sure what their organization system was for sorting out which kids went where, but I thought it safe to assume that they separated the boys from the girls, and possibly had the older kids in different rooms than the younger ones… Though that seemed less likely. If they had enough younger kids or older kids, maybe it'd be necessary to do that, but… Eh, I had no clue.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the entire room was the complete lack of any reflective surfaces. I knew I was a raccoon, of course, but I really wanted to _see_ myself. Get used to my current look, you know?

With a start, I remembered I kept a hand-mirror in my three-ring binder, in my book-bag.

Then, with disappointment, I realized my book-bag _probably _hadn't made it here with me. It had been nearby, sure, but so had a lot of other things that clearly hadn't come with me. Still, it was something to hope for.

So I turned back toward the bed and nearly whooped for joy when I saw my bag sitting right next to it, unscathed by the apparent dimension-hop. That thing contained a _lot_ of my belongings―at least belongings I tended to think needed to come with me wherever I went. Like my hand-mirror, or my laptop.

I crossed back to the bed and dug into the bag immediately, laying out my stuff to be looked through after I'd crossed looking at _myself_ off the to-do list.

Unzipping my binder, I was still relieved to find my mirror right where I'd left it yesterday. I hesitated before reaching for it, staring at the reflection of the ceiling. Was I ready to see this? Was I ready to cement this in my mind as the truth? After a moment I decided I had to be ready. I had to look. This wasn't something I could hide from, and if I had a panic attack afterwards? Well, that was how it was meant to be.

I picked up the mirror and closed my eyes.

When I peeked them open, staring back at me from the reflection was a tired and scared-looking raccoon with a thick mop of black hair falling around my face and shoulders. I now understood why Carmelita always had hers braided―it was heavy, which I'd already known, but with all the extra fur it had to get _hot_.

Setting the mirror aside and giving myself a moment to see if I was, in fact, going to have a panic attack, I was thankfully able to process what I'd seen peacefully. No hyperventilating or crying… Which was a relief. This let me move on to checking through everything else.

Some of the items had changed to be more suited to the fact that we were now in a video game―symbols and icons changing to what was apparently the in-game equivalent to companies and popular media, rather than what they'd been before. It made everything I owned feel like I cheap off-brand version of the real thing, and thankfully, that made me laugh. My laptop for instance, smattered with stickers, had had several of them change―the most jarring of them all was probably my RedBubble sticker, which now apparently proclaimed the company's name to be BlueBubble, with appropriate color-changes to the sticker. My guess is BlueBubble, at least, with the BB symbol and the fact that all of the red bits had been changed to blue.

Needless to say that one shook me a bit.

Thankfully, however, all of the important stuff (like my sketchbook and the files _on_ my laptop) had gone unchanged.

Which was, of course, all too weird to think about, because it kind of ruled out the possibility of someone just messing with me. Who would go to this much trouble? And how in the world had the necessary items to make me _think_ I looked like an anthropomorphic raccoon, anyway?

The mice returned to my room as I dug out a book I'd been reading in my spare time lately, and although I'd intended to read some more their appearance made me change that plan. I flipped to the page I'd been on, pretending to not notice them, frowned at the bookmarks sitting there, then sighed and removed them, snapping the book closed.

"That's going to get annoying." I grumbled, mostly for their benefit.

The older mouse chuckled, and I lifted my head to look at her. "Tomorrow we'll have you eat with the others, but we thought you may want some time to figure things out before interacting with too many people," She said, setting a bowl of soup on the table next to the bed, "Find anything in all that?"

"I found this," I said with a small smile, holding up a bookmark from my stack of them I'd had in the book, showing off the back to her, which proclaimed, in bright red ink, _Sophie A. Cooper_.

She laughed a little, nodding, and patted my head, "Well, go ahead and eat then, Sophie. You'll need your strength."

The two of them left quietly, and I quickly flipped back to my place in the book and crammed the bookmarks back in. No way was I letting go of my spot. Not when I was only ten chapters from the end!

Then, pausing, I pulled the single written-on one back out of the book and stared at it. The last time I'd seen it, it had said _Sophie A. Caldicot_ instead. But there the name Cooper was, written in my own handwriting. That was… So weird. I really, really didn't like it.

But I'd have to learn to deal with it.

Replacing the bookmark again and setting the book aside, I turned to the soup.

She was right, I needed my strength… Especially since I'd have to eat around other people tomorrow. Might as well enjoy my privacy while I had the chance.

While I slowly ate the soup, I mulled over the events of the day. The light from the window implied it was around sunset, so I'd essentially lost a whole day. Wasn't it just noon a few minutes ago? Wasn't I just in my living room? Gods above, this was… Oh, this was weird. How in the world did I end up here? What did I do?

Nothing I'd done this afternoon was any different than any other Saturday spent playing video games.

I soon gave up trying to figure it out, pushing the now-empty bowl away and laying down rather heavily on the bed.

_Welp_. I thought, _Looks like I've been snatched._

* * *

**A/N:** Okay, so this note can be skipped and I won't mind if it is, but just real quick I wanna say thank you again. Here's to six years of Sophie Cooper and her ragtag, unstable gang (hearts). Also, happy New Year 2020!

Now I just wanna talk for a minute about this rewrite, because admittedly I wasn't ever going to give the Ringtail series a rewrite. I didn't think there was a reason to. I figured I did pretty okay the first time around, and the original version of SAR ended up being the first multi-chapter ordeal with a fully comprehensive story that I ever finished writing. I had only just barely turned 14 when I started it, and if I could go back to the approach to writing I had when writing it (write what you want, consequences be damned, and if people like it that's pretty cool) I would finish so much more than I do at this point in time. The entire original fic was like... A first draft that I published. I didn't edit, I didn't really care if there were inconsistencies. I was just happy to write a chapter every day and upload it and have a couple people pop in to say they liked it here and there. Trying to rewrite it or do something more with it never even occurred to me, because why would people like it if it wasn't already as good as it was going to get?

But, you know, six years on, you can kind of see how things might need to be fixed or changed or just generally improved on. My writing style, for instance, has gotten more descriptive and my dialogue has gotten more genuine, so those are two key elements involved in the original that... Could use work. I've also taken a turn toward longer chapters as a result of those things changing, so while the original fic's prologue was less than 1K (not counting A/Ns), this one stands firm at a little over 2.5K. I'm fairly certain the overall wordcount of the rewritten version will more than double from the original even without A/Ns... Of which this one will be the longest. I'm trying to get stuff out of the way in the first chapter. So let's move on to other stuff!

_First off_, now that I'm rewriting it I'm working on fixing up some of the timeline discrepancies and the general timeframe of the fic, and the characters have all been aged up 2 years from their original ages because I felt it was probably best that the whole Rajan/Sophie thing take place when they're a little more mature. Re-reading and seeing them act Like That at 14/15ish was uncomfy, but since I was acting that way with my boyfriend when we were 16/17ish it was a little less uncomfy to have them be closer to that age... And I kinda just felt it made more sense in general for them to be older, especially considering I'm 20 now, and looking back a 14 year old wouldn't get up to the junk that these guys did and wouldn't be self-sufficient enough to survive almost completely on their own - lord knows that even as a highly self-sufficient 14 year old myself I wasn't ready to live on my own the way they are, but by 16 I was at least ready to be left alone for long stretches of time with occasional adult check-ins by my parents.

_Second_, me messing around with the general timeframe of the fic _will not_ change the overall story drastically at all! I've left everything in the same order, it's just that the story itself has slightly better pacing and I've spaced some events closer together or further away from each other depending on what felt more authentic. The original fic took place over the span of (I think) about a year and a half. This one spans closer to two - nothing extreme.

_Third,_ some important plot points have been reimagined to make more sense. I mean, seriously, I was _14_ the first time around, and my grasp of conflict was... Off. So this time around any big conflicts hopefully make more sense to everyone else haha

_Fourth,_ no it's not beta read this time either haha, but thankfully I'm 20 years old and I usually catch my mistakes, but if I don't the first time around I'll get it on a re-read later on down the line and edit it.

I had more stuff to say but I forgot so! I'll go ahead and cut this off here. Thanks for reading, again, and Happy New Year!


	2. Flushed Out

For the next several days, I was routinely asked by the mice if I'd remembered anything else, and I'd always make sure to look upset when I told them no. It wasn't hard, since I kind of was upset about it. Apparently I had a whole past here, in this world, and no way of figuring it out. It was frustrating.

But they'd always assure me I didn't _have_ to remember anything, and that it was okay if I didn't.

Didn't make it any less frustrating.

Still, I ended up giving up on trying soon after the fourth day or so. Honestly, if I was already stuck in an orphanage for probably the next two-ish years until I aged out, what else could possibly go wrong with me not remembering?

… A _lot_ of things, as it turned out, but I'll get to that in a moment.

About a week into my stay I decided to go through my bag again to find something to do aside from dither about, reading my book when I could sneak it without making it obvious I actually remembered where I'd been in it. I would do _Geometry_ if I had to. I was bored out of my freaking _wits,_ bro.

Now, when one has taken stock of everything they currently own already and has become very well aware that they are in a different universe, one somewhat expects their inventory to remain the same over time. They don't expect new things to simply appear in their stuff with no reason to be there. They don't take the time to expect it, as they're usually busy with things other than taking stock of their inventory every ten minutes.

What I'm trying to get at, here, is that when I opened up my binder for a piece of paper, I was not expecting there to be a new item stored within.

I was not expecting the Thievius Raccoonus.

And yet, there it was, nestled carefully underneath my mirror, waiting for me.

I'll be honest―I yelped in undignified surprise at the sight of it and nearly dropped the entire binder.

"Oh. My. _Gods._" I managed to hiss out when I regained my voice, tucking my legs under me so I could sit down and brace the binder on the ground so as not to almost drop it again when I tried to pick up the book.

Granted, I sat there gaping at it like a fish for a long moment before I even tried to pick it up, but that's to be expected.

But then, finally, I managed to reach out and pick it up, opening it with a reverence most would reserve for religious texts. But even if it wasn't religious, it was sacred to me if I was meant to be a Cooper. This thing was my _birthright, _provided I didn't have any older siblings. That was pretty freaking special.

I flipped through it carefully, observing hundreds of _thousands_ of entries from various Coopers throughout the years, including the famed Ryoichi and Slytenkhamen. Almost every Cooper I knew the name of and several I previously didn't had recorded their adventures here. It was awe-inspiring, really.

Then I arrived at Connor Cooper's entries, and felt myself choking up at the abrupt cutoff that I knew very intimately the cause of. But then there were Sly's entries, and Bentley's, and then… One more from Sly, which confused me almost more than what it was followed by―which was an entry from a Cooper I had definitely never heard of. Someone named Jacey Fox Cooper. After several more of theirs were entries from someone calling themself Ricky, then several from someone named James, a few of which were co-signed by what were presumably other members of James' gang.

The very last entry, on what was hardly even passable as a useable scrap of paper, was the one that set my heart pounding in my chest.

The very last entry was signed by…

_Me._

I managed a half-moment where I tried to process that, but was interrupted by something that just set my heart pounding even faster.

A resounding boom and subsequent crash so loud and so close they shook the building. Everything rumbled for a moment, and I heard other people beginning to yell and scream. Footsteps thumped overhead and below me.

I scrambled to stuff my binder back into my bag, heedless of my mirror's safety, and threw the bag over my shoulder while I tucked the Thievius Raccoonus under my arm. Who knew how much time I had to get out of here―I had to hurry. I didn't know what exactly was wrong, but I knew I needed to hurry.

Another boom, closer than the first, and the building positively trembled.

I threw myself down the stairs three at a time, skidding across the hardwood floor of the first level of the orphanage and running right into the front doors. I saw no trace of anyone else down here, and reasoned they must have gone out the back to take shelter elsewhere.

There was no time to join them.

I bolted out the front doors and stumbled down the front steps, managing to scamper far enough from the building to consider it safe to turn around and look to see what happened. The first thing I processed were plumes of black smoke coming from everywhere else on the grounds. The second thing was the orphanage caving in on itself and crumpling like a piece of old paper.

The others who had been in the orphanage had gone quiet, and with a sick feeling in my gut I hoped they'd gotten out alright... Especially the kindly old mouse.

As of yet, I had not been out of the orphanage before. I had not had any desire to leave since I probably would have just walked right off the property if given the barest hints of a chance, and in my mad dash to escape the danger of the falling building I hadn't really taken much of a look around.

It was not with any desire to admire the scenery that I slowly turned away from what remained of the Happy Camper orphanage. If no one had called the police yet, or the police hadn't already noticed, themselves, I had a chance to be of some help. I just had to try and follow the road into town despite not having the barest hints of a clue where I was. Shouldn't be hard―everyone so far had spoken English, with the barest hint of an accent on their voices, so it was unlikely I'd run into anything that I couldn't read or anyone I couldn't understand.

I had no more than turned and looked up before I saw a cloaked figure hurrying away. They were very tall, and, more than that, they were _really freaking suspicious._

"H-Hey!" I stammered out loudly, feet carrying me toward their retreating figure faster than I could realize I was going after them. "You!"

Very eloquent, I know. So incredibly tactful.

It did the trick, nonetheless, and they stopped quite suddenly, turning to face me. I couldn't see the majority of their face under their hood (who wore cloaks like that, anyway? Outside of a convention, at least), but I could see their mouth. They were grinning. They didn't seem perturbed by me stopping them.

"Any particular reason you set an orphanage full of kids to collapse?"

Oh, there was the mom voice―babysitting too many younger cousins and being the mom friend of a group does that to you. Me talking to this mysterious figure at all was also a result of those things. The mom-friend override to my social anxiety. There were enough kids in danger to activate the mom instinct.

"Nope." They said with a _probably_ male voice, "I was just bored."

I ground my teeth. "You were _bored?"_

Their grin grew, and then they shrugged, and then…

They were gone, leaving only a cloud of smoke that left me coughing and wheezing for several moments until it dissipated. I said some very unflattering things, followed by some things my mom would have smacked me for, and then began trudging my way down the long stretch of dirt road leading away from the orphanage. There wasn't much I could do except walk, after all. Unless somebody in that orphanage had a working cell phone, no one would have called the police, and _somebody_ had to try and get to them. Mostly because they could get the fire department _and_ actually had a chance of figuring out what the heck had happened and how the place had gone down.

I walked until my legs felt somewhat like jelly, by which time the sun was beginning to go down and I hadn't really made that much progress. I'd made it probably a mile and a half down the road. I couldn't see the actual building anymore, since it was little more than a pile of rubble on top of a hill and I'd already gone over _another_ hill, but I could still see the smoke curling into the sky. Someone from town had to have noticed that, right?

I hoped so.

When I felt it would be foolish to try and keep walking (legs feeling like jelly), I trudged off the road into the tall grass beside it. I took a moment in the dying light of the sun to check for any critters I might accidentally disturb and found none, so I carefully deposited my bag onto the ground and knelt down to rifle through it for supplies. I knew, for sure, I had a flashlight in this thing, because I'd seen it the last time I went through the bag. Once I managed to locate it I turned it on and continued looking with it tucked under my chin.

Now, this bag was a _heavy_ bag. It contained not only my sketchbook, binder, laptop, a bunch of other crap, and a couple of my textbooks due to being my school bag, it _also_ contained the bare essentials for what my dad so lovingly called a Bug-Out Bag. This included a flashlight, a box of matches (hidden in a pocket so I couldn't have them confiscated at school), a bag of road flares, a blanket, a can-opener, and a metal water bottle. If I'd had any time to prepare for my current trip I'd have ditched my textbooks to make room for my sleeping bag, my tent, and some food. Probably would have brought my duffel bag full of clothes, too. And my bike.

As it was, though, I had what I listed.

I set about cursing under my breath while I did my best with what I had available and tried to stay as far out of view of the road as I could.

I ended up with my blanket laid out in a makeshift pallet on the ground amidst the tall grass, backpack ready to be used as a pillow, jacket pulled tight around myself to ward off the incoming chill.

After a while, I decided to waste time until I was actually able to sleep by reading the Thievius Raccoonus. Not like any real harm could come of it. I'd have to learn all of this stuff eventually.

Flashlight in hand, I began to read.


	3. Renovations

_Taking a deep breath, I smiled as the wind ruffled my fur. I loved this feeling more than words could even describe._

_Here, so far above the bustling streets of Paris, I was free. Nothing could stop me here on the rooftops. Nothing could touch me. It was a sweet sort of drugless high that I never got tired of._

_I opened my eyes to take in the mesmerizing image of nighttime Paris again._

… _Again?_

_The thought flashed past, lost to the beauty of the city. My smile only grew._

"_Don't get too distracted, Jacey." A voice warned me through an ear-piece, "We're on a job, remember?"_

"_I know, I know!" I groaned, good mood lost, in a voice that wasn't mine at all, "But Paris is so beautiful, Damien… Don't be such a buzz-kill."_

. . .

Groggily, I blinked open my eyes, only to shut them again at the first sign of light.

"Mom," I grumbled as I began to feel somewhat conscious, "I just had the weirdest dream ever. First I was Sophie Cooper instead of Sophie Caldicot, then I was somebody named Jacey with a friend named Damien, and…"

I trailed as I realized, belatedly, that I was still not at home with my parents. My mom was not waking me for school. I was on the side of the road, at daybreak. I was still here.

I'd woken up here every day for a week, and I'd still thought it was a dream.

I shook myself off as I got up, half to wake my limbs up and half to dislodge the homesick feeling in my gut. I packed my stuff back up and set to walking once I was sure my legs could take it. No point sitting still, after all.

Getting all the way to town was going to be a real doozy.

I'd been walking _probably_ five minutes when a police car shot past.

Perplexed, I turned to stare after it, only to grow more confused when whoever was driving slammed harshly on the brakes and gunned it in reverse back to me. It happened in less than thirty seconds―talk about zero to sixty, huh? Whatever the make and model of that car was, it sure stopped and started quick. I had to get me one of those when I was old enough to buy a car.

"Hey, kid." The officer said, rolling down the window and leaning out to talk to me, "You know anything 'bout that orphanage up yonder collapsin'?"

He looked an odd mix between a fox and a racoon―more fox than raccoon for sure, with a distinctly reddish color to him and an altogether larger frame than any raccoon I'd ever seen. There had been a couple at the orphanage older than I was that weren't quite so husky. He seemed to be greying, which told me he was probably old, but he still looked sturdy.

"Not much more than you do, I'd wager." I told him, truthfully, "I know it went down yesterday, don't know why or how, or if anybody else made it out. I was staying up there while I tried to remember who I was and where I'm supposed to be. Figured I could make myself useful trying to get to town to get the authorities, but you got here without me."

He nodded, even if there was a hint of recognition in his eyes.

I was momentarily glad I'd thrown the Thievius Raccoonus back into my bag this morning instead of tucking it under my arm.

"Well, I gotta get up there to take a look 'round, but if you just take a left when you get to the fork in the road, you'll head right to the city. I'll be watchin' for ya when I get back to town, yeah?"

"Thanks," I told him, and I continued on my way.

And he continued on his with a rumble of his engine and the sound of dirt and rocks flying.

Speed demon, obviously.

I kept walking up the road for a while, and some thirty minutes later I finally came upon the fork in the road he'd told me about. Still, regardless of his directions I paused to read the sign for a moment. Couldn't hurt to double-check, right? And what if he'd meant _his_ left, not _my_ left?

The right-hand part of the sign read, "Cooper farm", and the left-hand part read, "To Paris."

Okay, so he'd meant my left.

Cool.

… But what was this about a Cooper farm?

A little suspicious, with a sick-ish feeling in my stomach, I chose to turn down the right-hand road instead. Maybe there would be some kind of answers at this farm. If not that, it was a place to stay while I figured out what else to do with my life for the time being. There wasn't a whole lot that I could do until I 'remembered' my life before this. I didn't have any goals I knew of or any aspirations, though it could be assumed that I aspired to be a master thief.

The road to the farm was long and winding, and in the early morning it was chilly and unpleasant due to the blanket of shade the trees leant the path. It probably would have been pretty beautiful, maybe even enough to make me stop and look around a few times, in any other circumstances.

Eventually, I relaxed a bit, though. This was a fairly idyllic little walk. It felt safe, even in the places where the path was somewhat (or mostly) overgrown and I had to search for a moment to find the old tire tracks again. It was probably the most at-peace I'd felt since I woke up in the orphanage. For a while I was almost able to pretend I was back home, wandering along some trail in the woods like I always did in the summer.

After walking for quite a while, however, the overgrown path led me to an old, rustic wooden gate. Signs attached to and around it proclaimed, "Private Property" and "No Trespassing."

Most prominent, however, was the faded, hand-painted sign that read, "Cooper Farm."

I hesitated before I reached out, and hesitated once again with my fingertips brushing the wood of the gate. Maybe I ought to turn around and head for town, after all… Maybe someone still lived here. Maybe…

I nearly pulled my hand away and stepped back.

But, steeling myself, I swallowed and laid my hand on the gate. It swung open without much issue, save for the ear-grating screech the hinges gave in protest. I winced, but took some comfort in the fact that, obviously, no one had opened it in a long time. That meant no one was here.

I closed the gate behind me, wincing again at the repeated screech, and told myself I was going to hit that thing with some WD-40 as soon as I got the chance.

I noticed, as I started to turn away, an old, faded piece of police tape caught in the side of the gate.

Yeah, that was comforting.

I observed the grounds from the gates before I moved any further. There was a wide open field, overgrown with grass, off to the left. A little ways away was a quaint little two-story farmhouse that looked like it hadn't been so much as _thought about_ in decades. There was a pile of plywood among the tall grass next to it, and off behind that was a faded red barn.

I waded (there's really no other word for it) through the waist-high grass to the front porch and stepped up after testing the stairs to make sure they could hold me. The wood, though clearly rather old, didn't seem to be rotting. The whole porch seemed to be in good shape, really.

The front door to the house was ajar, and on the edge of the porch I prayed the inside would not smell of death. The only Coopers I knew of that lived on a farm were Sly's parents and, well… I'm sure you can guess why I was concerned.

I steeled myself again, swallowing, and slowly crossed the porch to the half-open door. I pushed it further open, stepping inside and shivering at the immediate drop in temperature.

… It did not smell like death.

Mostly it smelled like stale air and old wood, with a hint of apple cider somewhere on the edge.

The only immediate evidence of this having really been Sly's childhood home, of the tragedy that had happened here so long ago, was the broken door and the dry, faded blood spatter on the living room wall. It almost didn't look like it was really there―like it had either faded over time, or someone had made a bona fide attempt to scrub it away but hadn't been able to remove the stain.

I quietly crept into the kitchen from the living room and looked under the sink. When I found the cleaning supplies I could get at (bleach, a water jug, a bucket, and a sponge), I headed back into the living room, and I spent most of the morning scrubbing the blood and even some of the paint the rest of the way off the wall.

I spent the afternoon after that dragging a bed from what seemed to be the guest room out into the yard, where I mercilessly sprayed it down with some of that fabric Febreze (which I also found under the sink) and, eventually, applying a fresh coat of paint to the living room walls. I found the paint buckets in the barn, and they weren't the same color as the original paint but it wasn't like the place hadn't needed some new paint anyway.

And I much preferred the soft lavender to the muted, murky beige they'd been before, personally.

By nightfall I'd pretty much gotten the living room half-liveable and was well on my way to figuring out a comfortable set-up for myself. But things were far from being completely ready and the paint was still wet, so I decided I might as well sleep outside. The mattress was still out there, so at least I'd have something soft to lay on. My back had protested the previous night's lodgings for a good two minutes before I even managed to start walking.

I curled up on the mattress with my blanket and forewent reading any more of the Thievius Raccoonus tonight. I was tired and I very much wanted some rest. The orphanage debacle was being taken care of, the sketchy P.O.S. who apparently blew the place up was going to be caught, and I had no further obligations except to eventually check in to make sure that the kindly old mouse was okay.

Closing my eyes, I drifted off to sleep far more swiftly than usual.

. . .

_The view was still astounding, even now. Even after all the times I'd seen it. Even after all the years I'd been doing this._

_I smiled._

"_Honestly, Jacey," The voice I recognized as Damien sighed, "Every time we have a mission in Paris, you kill an hour or two just staring at the city from a rooftop. I don't get what's so interesting."_

"_You're being a buzz-kill again, Dames," I told him, amused, "But I guess it's just, like… This place has been here for a long time, you know? And through the years there's never really any major changes… Something about knowing this place is constantly changing but constantly the same is just… Captivating." I sighed, half annoyed I had no better words to describe it with and half amused, still, that Damien didn't see things the way I did, as usual. "That, and the sunrise is __**very**_ _pretty in Paris."_

"_Still don't get it." Damien said after a moment, with an obvious shake of his head even if I couldn't see it, "But at least now I sort of have a chance."_

. . .

I woke up flat on my back, spread-eagled on the mattress and staring up at the slowly lightening sky. My cover was only half-on me, and I could feel a chill in the air, but I wasn't terribly cold.

Didn't stop me from pulling my cover up to my neck while I laid there trying to wake up, of course.

I was eternally grateful to past-me for designating a thick, soft, _huge_ blanket as my Bug-Out blanket, because as a human I'd been scrawny and quick to succumb to a chill. I'd always thought that, even if I Bugged-Out to somewhere warm, I'd still take the same blanket, because I'd rather sweat to death than freeze.

As a raccoon, of course, I'd noticed that my fur kept me pretty comfortable even without a blanket, but I still wouldn't dare trade this blanket out. It was the best.

When the sun was finally actually in the sky, I reluctantly crawled off the mattress and went inside to see if the paint was dry. Finding it was, I sighed in relief and set about checking out all of the other rooms in the house. Overall, the main damages to the whole place had been the living room and that now badly-concealed safe where the Thievius Raccoonus had once resided.

I eventually stumbled upon Sly's room, too, and I'll keep it real with you―I almost ended up crying on his floor after looking at his childhood drawings. Even if they were cute and mostly made me smile, knowing how the innocence of this poor child had to be shattered hurt me. He hadn't deserved any of that. Given half a chance I'd jack-slap Clockwerk myself for being such a life-ruining _jerk_, but of course he was long gone.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, if I do say so myself.

I decided I was going to hold onto one of the doodles, regardless―one detailing Connor as a superhero, with the police chasing him decked out with devil horns and spiked tails.

I put it in my binder for safe-keeping.

Other than that, I left his room as it was.

I spent most of the rest of the morning turning a back-room on the first floor into a makeshift headquarters. Most of that consisted of shuffling furniture around until I had a table and chairs situated where I wanted them and then setting up my laptop and laying out some old maps I had found in Connor's old office. The whole place needed a good dusting and I really wanted to run a vacuum, but I didn't think the place actually had power, frankly. Setting up my laptop for now had meant sitting it on the table where it could eventually be of use when I turned it back on.

It would do for the time being.

And, since the makeshift headquarters only really took up about half of the room and I wanted to keep my junk mostly in the same general area, I strung an old piece of clothesline across the middle of the room by attaching it to some nails that were already there and clothespinned a few sheets from the linen closet to it to see how that looked. After deciding I liked it I temporarily ditched the sheets so that I could bring the mattress in from outside and set it up. I ended up with it laying atop some of the plywood just to get it off the ground, but that left a good foot or so of plywood between the side of the bed and the floor. I had to climb onto the jutting plywood to get to the mattress.

It'd work, though. At least this way I'd be able to tell if I started to roll off the bed―I'd feel plywood and probably roll right back over.

All the manual labor tuckered me out, so I sat down to read the Thievius Raccoonus for a while, and when I felt like I could actually manage it I ventured out into the field to try and pull off some of the moves. Without anyone to tell me if I was doing them right or not, though, I quickly lost interest. Now was not the time where I was okay with learning how to do them wrong.

I went back inside, after that, and after reading until the sun went down I fell quietly into bed and, thankfully, didn't dream.


	4. Henry

My absolute lack of enthusiasm for waking up in the morning made me realize that I probably wasn't sleeping on the ground or the bed at the orphanage, so with some hesitance I opened my eyes. Seeing the makeshift curtain I'd made from the mismatched sheets from the closet, I slowly sat up while suppressing a yawn. It took me a moment to understand where I was, and that _also_ clued me into the fact that I probably wasn't in the orphanage. I take much longer to wake up and process things when I'm comfortable or don't feel like I'm in any danger, and as weird as it was being in an abandoned house I definitely felt safer since there was no one around.

Heaving myself out of bed, I finally allowed a huge yawn and shook myself after a good stretch. I had work to do today. I'd already dealt with needing a bed in here, so the first order of business was tracking down some oil so I could get those gates to stop screeching. I couldn't _stand_ that noise. It was… Eugh.

Hesitantly, not wanting to chance it but also not wanting to continue on in utter silence, I removed my tablet (expensive and battery-operated though it was) from its hiding place within my bag and turned it on. I primarily used the thing to listen to music on my way to and from school, since I had a laptop to do everything else on, so I kept it off when I wasn't using it and I was _pretty_ sure I'd charged it the night before everything went to crap and I ended up here.

Seeing the full-battery notification I heaved a sigh of relief and quickly switched on Extended Battery Saver Mode before scrolling through my music selection and picking a random song.

The music echoed eerily in the fields outside, bouncing back from odd angles. It reached my ears at several different times, pitches, even _speeds._ I still heard the song as it came out of the speakers, but hearing it bounce back almost had me jumping.

I decided to double back and leave the thing on a table on the porch. With the screen off and the volume maxed out, I went in search of oil. The echoing wasn't so bad with the device stationary, so at least there was that.

Finding the oil, I trotted across the large yard to the front gates and spent a good fifteen or twenty minutes ridding them of that horrendous screech and all the difficulty I had in opening them. I also spent some time removing the old police tape and tossing it in what probably used to be a fire pit out behind the house, along with some rotting wood and the shredded chunks of furniture from the living room. None of it had survived Clockwerk's assault.

Shame.

The couch had looked comfortable.

Shaking the thought from my head, I trekked around the grounds in search of other things I could work on. Aside from a couple of other squeaky gates and some things that needed a fresh coat of paint, there wasn't much. But don't get me wrong―it still ended up taking me most of the day and almost all of my nearly boundless energy. I had to stop halfway through painting the barn doors.

See, there was this issue with my current situation that I may or may not have already mentioned―I didn't have any food, and I was starting to really feel it. I'd had a bit of a stomach ache since the day before from not eating and it was only getting worse. You know, like it was _supposed_ to. Regrettably, as awesome as I was, I still needed fuel to keep the awesome from running out. A flaw in the human design, I'd say, if I didn't like eating so dang much.

Nevertheless I did my best to ignore the growing hunger and the pain that accompanied it. Really the most inconvenient part was that I was dehydrated, and my water bottle was _definitely_ empty. Maybe there was a well on the property? I hadn't explored much of it past the two buildings and the fields around them, and the place was _surrounded_ by trees.

It wasn't an adventure I felt up for today.

Instead, I returned to my little headquarters and resumed reading the Thievius Raccoonus. I made some real headway this time, unlike the last couple, as I was just awake enough to be interested and just tired enough to not want to do anything else. It also proved a good distraction from the hunger―I got too drawn in to notice.

By the time the light began to dim significantly as the sun went down, I had somehow made it to the middle of Jacey's writings. They hadn't exactly made it terribly clear yet who they were or what they were like. Their writing was pretty clinical and straightforward; much like Bentley, they lacked the storytelling voice that most of the Coopers who wrote in the book before them had.

I could assume, from the few clues I'd managed to gather, that they were a twin, probably the elder sibling given they were writing in the book, and that their sister was named Zephyr and _apparently_ rather attached to their team telekinetic, Vallen Frost. Even Sly, their father, hadn't said enough about them for me to figure out if they even _had_ a gender, because their name didn't really give many clues and Sly only ever referenced they and their sister as his "beautiful babies" early on or "the kids" later down the line.

I decided to go ahead and head to bed for the night when it was too dark to read, and, though I'd shut it off hours ago when I began reading, I double-checked to make sure my tablet was not switched on. I didn't want to drain the battery overnight on accident. That'd be super inconvenient.

Laying down and trying to keep my mind off of being hungry, I decided I'd just have to go into town tomorrow and see what I could get. I _might_ have to beg on the streets or steal something, but it'd work. Whatever got me something to eat―nevermind that it was probably a considerable walk to Paris and I would be hungrier by the time I got there than I would be if I just looked around the rest of the property for an apple tree or something.

When I eventually fell asleep, the last thought to cross my mind was, _This is crazy._

Predictably, it was my stomach that deigned to wake me in the morning.

"Oh, gods." I groaned miserably, clutching my stomach as I tried to convince myself to roll out of bed, "I hate my life."

When I did finally manage to get out of bed, I spent a long few minutes debating whether to take anything with me on my trip. Too much weight would slow me down and tire me out easier, but not taking anything would make me feel nervous and exposed.

I decided I'd just have to be nervous and exposed.

I spent a few minutes reviewing the Rail Walk and Rail Grind, along with the Ninja Spire Jump, and decided that even if it tuckered me out and made me even hungrier, I ought to start learning them. And if I could perfect them on an empty stomach, I'd be a _pro_ once I was fed.

Then, again justifying not taking anything with me, I finally slunk out of the house and out of the gate.

Climbing a tree to begin practicing the moves I'd reviewed took some effort and I definitely had to stop when I got high enough so that I could breathe and will away the hunger pangs. If I could just _focus_ I'd forget I was hungry. That was how that worked, right?

I also had to, you know, _not look down,_ because I may not be horrified of heights but the thought of a fall from this high, this far out of town, on an _empty stomach,_ was not one I wanted.

Thinking too much about that made me queasy and nervous enough that I wasn't terribly hungry for the rest of the trip back to the fork in the road.

I spent the whole trip practicing, and I guess I was pretty good at the moves I'd picked because I didn't fall even _once._ Not even a little. I barely even gave myself the archetypal "oh crap" two inch fall.

Sly would have been proud.

When I finally arrived back at the fork and swung myself down to the path, I found myself face to face with the cop I'd seen on the road up to the orphanage. Thankfully, as startled as I was, he seemed doubly so.

At least for a moment, before an amused grin broke out on his face while I was still processing the fact that he was here.

"Well then," He greeted, voice as amused as his face, "You just _gotta_ be a Cooper, huh?"

"Yeah," I admitted, rather than trying to fake it―I'd just come from the _Cooper Farm,_ and he'd probably seen me rail-grinding down the last branch until I swung myself off of the one beneath it, "I don't know enough about myself to say much else, though."

His smile turned soft, that hint of recognition tinting his gaze again. "My grandma was Carmelita," He said, "She'd be your great-great grandma. Makes us cousins."

I blinked, feeling simultaneously relieved and suspicious.

"You got that book? The Thievius Raccoonus or… No, that's right, aint it?"

Feeling a little less suspicious (only thieves and their kin knew about the Thievius Raccoonus), I said, "Yeah. Just got into Jacey's escapades yesterday evening."

That got a laugh from him as he nodded, "Aunt Jace―now _there_ was a fine thief."

He shook his head, smiling fondly, and he seemed like he might say something else before my stomach decided to yell at me very, _very_ audibly.

I flushed, but I didn't get a chance to stammer out an excuse or apology.

"You better get in," He said, sympathetically, motioning to the passenger's side door of the car, "You look beat and I bet that there farm aint got nothin' to eat. And I can teach ya some tricks I learned from Sly and Jace when I was a cub, later."

Though somewhat hesitant, I decided there wasn't much he could do against me, so I shot him a smile and said, "Sounds great. You're right though―I haven't eaten since the day the orphanage went down."

He gave me another sympathetic look as he got into his car and allowed me to get in on my own, as well.

"Anybody else make it out of there, by the way?" I asked, swinging myself in.

It occurred to me as I was doing so that, _hey,_ he'd answered one of my many questions about Jacey. _She_ was his aunt.

I felt a little abashed at not realizing it sooner, but we _had_ been interrupted and I was distracted with my angry stomach.

"Sure did―most of 'em got out without much more than some shakes and a good scare. Few got hurt… Nobody died, though, even if a couple of 'em had to get taken straight to the hospital." Shaking his head somewhat sadly, he went on to say, "Now there was this hawk and a wolf 'bout fifteen or sixteen that didn't even get the shakes. Didn't even seem surprised, just looked sad… Poor things been there since they was little―I remember 'em."

"Ouch." I said, lacking anything else, but I was nevertheless relieved that there weren't any deaths.

He nodded his agreement, and the rest of the ride into town was pretty much silent.

Silent, but not awkward. It was really very comfortable.

"What's your name, by the way?" I eventually asked him, wondering if Jacey had ended up with another sibling, or if Zephyr had been his mother, and if so, who she'd ended up with.

"Henry Frost," He said without much hesitation―though he did seem somewhat troubled, "Yours?"

"Sophie."

I didn't miss the way his hands tightened on the steering wheel, or the brief flash of regret in his face.

I didn't miss them, but I also didn't comment. What was going through his head wasn't my business―I didn't know him well enough for it to be my business.


	5. Of Family Bonding

After an admittedly large breakfast at a nearby diner and some grocery shopping for non-perishables, we ended up at Henry's house.

Now, under normal circumstances I wouldn't have even _considered_ going alone into a house with someone so much older than me after knowing them for three hours at absolute maximum. But these were not normal circumstances. If he could offer me some training in the moves I was trying to learn eventually _anyway,_ I had to try. How badly could it end up? If he arrested me he was a hypocrite and it wouldn't go anywhere because I genuinely remembered _nothing_ about the life I apparently had here.

If he killed me or did anything else of unsavory nature, well, that sucked, but those were the breaks.

The house itself was pretty sweet, I have to admit. It was near the edge of town, surrounded by high privacy fences that were more or less absent from the rest of the city. It was secluded and _perfect_ for getting some training done, honestly.

"Now," Henry said, once we were in the back yard, "You seem to have mastered the rail moves and the ninja spire jump. What do you say we start with invisibility today?"

"Bring it on," I said, grinning.

"You'll regret being so cocky." He advised.

And he was right, of course. By noon, less than an hour after I got there, I was sweating buckets, and I regretted the blind confidence I'd had. Turns out maintaining invisibility is _hard._ At least when you're first learning how to do it. Three hours after _that,_ when we'd gone through moving while invisible, climbing and parkour, and slowing down and speeding up time, I was out of breath and soaked to the bone with sweat. Speeding up time was really the final straw for me, for the day. Too many variables to control, you know?

"You're pretty good," Henry complimented. "Took me forever to figure out how to move while invisible… Sucks that if a guard has already seen you, it won't work anyway. I think mom tried to figure a way around that… But unless Aunt Jace wrote it in that big book of thievin' you've got, I don't think she ever got it."

I frowned a bit, thinking on that information. I was _pretty_ sure I'd seen some mention of that when I was flipping through that day back at the orphanage… "I think she did," I told him, "I'm pretty sure I saw something about it the other day…"

"Great," He said, and he sounded more thrilled about it than I could muster up the courage to be.

He gave me lunch and we practiced a little more after that, and eventually decided he probably ought to take me home.

Loading up into his car, we were off back toward the fork in the road.

Still breathing hard, but nonetheless curious and hoping for some answers, I managed to ask him, "So, who were my parents? Do you know?"

He nodded, looking quite solemn. "Your dad was James. Fine thief, he was―not my aunt, for sure, but skilled nonetheless." He paused for a moment, "Your mom would have been Charity. Charity Dells―your dad's locksmith. Helped him learn how to pick locks when they were kids and, well, you know how the saying goes. Thick as thieves."

"That's cute," I acknowledged with a smile, but soon it fell away. "Are they…?"

"Nobody knows," He sighed, "They've been MIA for years, so we _assume,_ but we can never be sure."

_Might as well be dead, then._ I decided, mentally. That was probably for the best―less people for me to disappoint by not having the memories I needed.

It was quiet a moment.

"... So, those orphans. The hawk and the wolf." I finally said, and caught him giving me a side-eye, "Do you know where they are right now?"

"Sure do," He said, only a little suspicious. "Why?"

"You said they weren't really all that fazed by the orphanage going down," I explained, "I think I'd like to meet them… Maybe get a start on my team, if I'm lucky enough."

He grinned in response, but it didn't reach his eyes. His eyes just looked sorrowful. "You're a Cooper alright," He said, tone light in spite of the age-old mourning in his eyes, "Sly'd be proud."

He made a sharp left turn suddenly, and it was only experience with my dad's occasionally horrid driving that let me avoid being pancaked against the passenger door. Hand gripping the lovingly nicknamed "oh-shit handle" above the door so hard my knuckles were white, I couldn't help but laugh, "Nice driving."

"I learned from Murray," He told me, grinning again in response, "What did you expect from me?"

I just laughed again, and thanked the fact that I had the Thievius Raccoonus for my strangely informed knowledge of the people he was talking about. Can you imagine if I'd understood what he meant if I didn't have it? That'd just get his poor hopes up that I remembered something. Or I'd just come off as straight-up creepy… And even _with_ it I had to be careful what I said, because my near encyclopedic knowledge of these poor people would probably be my downfall otherwise.

He eased off the gas as we trundled down the overgrown path to the farm's gates. That he knew it was here and could follow the path was of no real concern to me. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd been here before, though maybe on foot and maybe about twenty years ago.

He seemed to lose the good mood he'd regained as we got closer to the gates. Something in me was pretty sure that was just because we were parting so soon after meeting. He had a family member that his constant regret clearly showed he'd known before back, and she didn't remember him, but at least he could talk to her, right? Even if things weren't the same now, I was here in the shape of his young cousin Sophie Cooper, and with any luck on his part I was close enough to the real thing to feel genuine… Which would only make dropping me off here all the more difficult for him.

"Say," I said, after he'd stopped just before the gates, "D'ya think you could bring those two by tomorrow? I've almost got this place fixed up enough to justify a visitor or two…"

A spark lit in his eyes again, and he hopped out to help me retrieve my groceries with little more than a, "Sure thing!"

For being old enough to be my granddaddy and obviously suffering because I wasn't the Sophie he knew even if I looked like her, he sure was _peppy._ It was… Surprisingly not as disconcerting as I expected it to be.

Waving to me, he got back in and more or less threw his cruiser into reverse once I was safely past the gates with my groceries. He did not bother turning around. He just blasted backwards down the path and disappeared quickly into the foliage.

I laughed, somewhat disbelieving, and turned to head for the farmhouse. A smile quickly took up residence on my face as I strode across the grounds toward the house that had so quickly become something very distinctly _mine._ Things weren't really that bad here, I had to admit.

Almost as soon as the thought passed through my head, a voice chimed from behind me.

"You are aware that the price for staying here will be enormous, yes?"

I spun to face the mysterious stranger, and found a woman cloaked in white standing in stark contrast to her surroundings against the aging fence. I knew that she was a woman on sight―I didn't know how or why I drew the conclusion, with no discernable features available to me aside from her lips and nose, but I _knew._ I knew in my gut that this stern figure in white with the sharp frown was a _she._

"I―" I began, then, lamely, "What?"

"This world is not yours." She explained, surprisingly patient for how irritated she looked, "If you choose to stay, when given the choice, you will lose everything that came before this. This is all there will be for you. _Forever._" Her frown deepened, somehow, and she continued, "Make your choice very carefully when the time comes. Weigh your options before then. You will not get a second chance."

And then…

She was gone.

No puff of smoke, no pop, _nothing._ Just there and then―not.

"Okay," I drew the word out slowly, emphasizing the syllables strongly, "Adding 'freaky lady in white robes' to the list."

Attempting to forget what just happened, I turned toward the farmhouse and began walking again. Said list was more a comprehensive record of the oddest and most strangely threatening people I'd ever met. She would take the top spot, probably, if not for the man I'd met in London on a family trip the year before I'd gotten sucked into the world of Sly Cooper. Nothing would ever top the odd and threatening energy he gave off without ever saying a word or even _frowning._

But before I reached the farmhouse, the memory was just… Gone. I didn't remember seeing her, didn't remember thinking about it afterwards. It was like it never happened, and I hadn't been interrupted on my way back to the farmhouse. The only difference was that I had somehow gotten to thinking about the creepy dude from England, and I didn't know how I'd gone to that from thinking this place was pretty okay.

I shrugged it off, because it wouldn't at all be the first time that something completely unconnected popped into my head. I just continued into the house and organized my groceries before sitting down on the kitchen table with the Thievius Raccoonus and plans to read it for as long as I could.

When the sun began to go down, I lit a lantern that Henry had given to me and continued on until my eyelids started to droop.

Yawning, I made my way with book and light to the little headquarters I'd set up and settled into bed. I blew out the lantern after setting the Thievius Raccoonus aside, and almost as soon as I laid my head back down, I was out.

. . .

"_Honestly, Bentley." I said, annoyed, "I __**know**_ _what I'm doing!" I continued, voice lowered, to grumble out, "You'd think I never learned __**anything**_ _from my dad witht eh way you two panic…"_

"_You know we're just worried about you, Jacey," The voice of Bentley said through my earpiece, "If you're __**anything**_ _like Sly, you'll get into more trouble than you need to to get that statue."_

"_Ah, lay off her, Bentley." Damien snorted, amused, "The more you nag, the more trouble she gets in just to spite you."_

_I snorted in reply, but he was right._

"_Just get the statue, dear," Damien told me, "So poor Bentley here can stop fretting."_


	6. And Paradoxical Letters

From the first moment I was conscious in the morning, I was busy.

Like most socially awkward folks about to receive their first houseguests in a new place, especially if they don't _know_ the houseguests, I couldn't let myself rest any further while there were things to do. There was no telling when Henry would bring the hawk and wolf by the house! I had to have things set up before then.

So I spent the morning rushing around like the Flash on crack, putting things away and rearranging furniture. I managed to haul a couch from upstairs into the living room all on my own with nothing but the power of anxiety and the need for my guests to have somewhere to sit. Lord only knows what it was doing upstairs in the first place, but I didn't rightly care. It was more important that I had the thing at all.

When there was nothing else at all I could possibly do except fret about how I looked (the only good mirror in the house aside from my hand mirror was in a pitch black bathroom) and what I _smelled_ like after yesterday, I decided I ought to check and see what I had left to read in the Thievius Raccoonus. If I got lucky I'd be able to pass the time until my guests arrived by reading it.

Rather than actually checking, I ended up just sitting down to read. But there was only one entry left from my father, I soon found, and reading it wasted maybe three minutes of my time. Sighing, I almost closed the book before my eyes caught on something.

The entry that had nearly sent me into cardiac arrest the day that the orphanage went down.

The entry I had signed, except it wasn't _my_ signature.

_Dear Sophie,_

_As soon as you've read this letter, get rid of it! It could complicate everything._

_I'll be brief, here. My name is Sophie Cooper, and I'm not cut out to be a thief. There are complications even I don't know the extent of, and all I can say for certain is that I probably won't survive through the end of the year. But there are things that need done, things I am supposed to do, and can't. I'm not strong enough for it. The body fate dropped me in is frail and having a not-particularly powerful soul doesn't help keep you alive when the connection between the two is flimsier than aluminum foil._

_So I'm sorry I dragged you into this, but you were the best person for the job. You're perfect, actually! Our interests are similar, we're the same age―we were born minutes apart on the same day in the same year. And our birth names. I'm Sophia Angelo Cooper, you're Sophia Angelo Caldicot. It's just too perfect. It was meant to be._

_I'm sorry again for screwing up your life. Please don't hate me._

_-Sophie Cooper_


	7. Deja Vu

I spent a good ten minutes after reading the letter the first time rereading it and trying to process what I was seeing. The person I was here to replace had replaced herself? On _purpose?_ Talk of bodies being too weak, _souls_ being weak. The same first and middle names, the same birthday and similar birth times… It was all just too much.

I ripped the letter out of the Thievius Raccoonus and ran to my little headquarters to stuff it into my bag. I'd figure out what to do with it later, but I wasn't getting rid of it. Not on my _life._

"_... lose everything that came before…"_

Maybe, if I chose to stay, I could scribble a note before everything was gone? Remind myself to remember.

Now, I wouldn't stay out of a twisted sense of duty. Don't get me wrong―it moved me that this apparently dead or dying Sophie (the _real_ Sophie Cooper) trusted me and wanted me to do something she was meant to do. It moved me deeply. It spoke to a certain kind of desperation, you know? And that had some bearing on my decision, but ultimately, in that moment, I mostly decided I ought to stay because it felt like the correct thing to be doing.

Before I became too lost to my thoughts, a long, hard honk interrupted me, and I jumped into action instantly. That could only be Henry and my guests, and the anxiety I felt about them coming here returned with vengeance.

_Parkour,_ I thought, somewhat flatly and without the humor it was meant to have, in regards to jumping back and forth between dying of anxiety and going into cardiac arrest over weird letters.

I threw the Thievius Raccoonus onto my bed and flitted out the door and across the grounds to the gate, where Henry was stalled. Behind his cruiser he towed a trailer covered in tarps.

I pulled the gate open and hitched a ride on Henry's trailer back to the house, where I jumped back off to open the door for them like a _good host._

"Come on in," I invited, not looking at the orphans I knew Henry had brought.

I didn't quite have the courage, yet, frankly.

I paused in the living room, listening to their shuffling footsteps and Henry's more steady strides. Finally, with a deep breath I hoped they didn't notice, I turned to face them.

And promptly got to witness their jaws dropping to the floor.

"S-Sophie?" The wolf asked, bewildered and maybe a little afraid.

"Sophie _Cooper?"_ Asked the hawk in a similar tone, though hers was colored with an additional dash of disbelief.

"That's my name," I agreed with them, somewhat sheepishly as I rubbed at the back of my neck, "I'm sorry. If I knew who you were at any point in time, I'm unfortunately drawing a blank on who you are now. I've got this annoying case of amnesia…"

The hawk's face visibly fell, and the wolf also seemed disappointed as his ears dropped from their perked position.

"Then why ask to see us?" The hawk asked, seeming somewhat despondent.

"Well," I said, beginning a speech I had prepared and rehearsed all morning, "Every great thief needs an equally great team to back them up, and…" I trailed, furrowing my brows in confusion. Where was this feeling of deja vu coming from?

"And…?" Prompted the wolf after a moment.

"And… I get the _strangest_ feeling," I supposed hesitantly, "That you two have heard this speech from me before."

It was truly bizarre―getting deja vu for a life I hadn't even lived? How was _that_ for freaky?

"We have," Said the hawk as a smile tugged at her beak.

"Well, damn." I laughed awkwardly, "Just havin' you two around is making me remember stuff."

It almost felt like someone spoke to me, after that, but there was no actual voice in my head. Two names just jumped out at me from nowhere, and I somehow knew which was which. The hawk was Lindsey, the wolf was Rudy.

I took the disconcerting knowledge in stride as well as I could.

"Going out on a limb, here," I warned them, "But… Lizzy and Rusty?" I suggested despite knowing it was wrong. "No, that's not right. Same amount of syllables though…"

Better to have them confirm than find out I was wrong, you know?

"Lindsey," Giggled the hawk.

"Rudy," The wolf added.

"I was close," I said, half-triumphant and half-freaked out.

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," Henry replied, tone teasing.

I managed a laugh, and there was a brief silence.

"Oh, by the way, Soph." Henry continued, after that moment, "I got some stuff for you."

"... Tarp-covered stuff?" I guessed.

"Did you peek?" He accused playfully.

"Slipped my mind," I was able to say, honestly, "I was too busy being socially awkward."

That got a laugh from all three of the people there with me, and somehow the sound put me immediately at ease. I _recognized_ these laughs. They felt comfortable to me. Like how I'd have felt if my best friends back home had laughed at a joke.

"Definitely our Sophie," Rudy commented fondly, when he sobered. "What's with the police escort, though?"

"Apparently he's my first cousin once removed?" I explained with a shrug, "Jacey talks about him in the Thievius Raccoonus so I'm hard-pressed not to believe him."

Lindsey didn't seem entirely convinced, but she nodded along. I got the feeling they already knew him, just like they'd already known the real Sophie Cooper… I got the feeling she knew she could trust him, but she didn't like my reasoning for trusting him. It'd make sense, probably―if they knew me, they'd be upset if there was a possibility I was being taken advantage of, right?

"Not sure why he went into law enforcement, but I suspect Carmelita may have had a hand in that decision." I shrugged again and shook my head, "So, anyways, what was this about tarp-covered stuff?"

Henry laughed and motioned me back outside so that he could remove the tarps from the trailer and unhitch it from his cruiser. My eyes widened as I realized he'd brought me an assortment of household appliances, fresh paint buckets, related painting supplies, and what appeared to be a large toolbox. How had he known I needed all of it? I hadn't mentioned that the house had been barren of working appliances when I was with him yesterday!

… But maybe he'd taken my insistence on purchasing only non-perishables as a hint I may need a refrigerator, and my dirty clothes as a hint I needed a washing machine and dryer.

While I was half in-awe of the bounty he'd brought, he tossed something at me. I caught the small item with a wide-eyed blink, but didn't get a chance to question it at all.

"_Those,"_ He said, "Are for something I left back at the fork in the road. Couldn't have it towed any closer without questions, and the trailer made it hard to tow it in here myself."

I didn't get a chance to question _that_, either, as he hopped into the cruiser and deftly maneuvered himself around the trailer and back out the gates. He left me there, with my new appliances, painting supplies, tools, and Lindsey and Rudy. I opened my hand to look at what Henry had thrown to me.

Keys.

I furrowed my brows.

Why would I need _keys?_

They looked like _car_ keys. Surely he knew I couldn't _drive?_ I didn't know the legal driving age in France for sure, but I knew I wasn't finished with my 50 hours of state-mandated parent-guided driving I needed to get my license back in the states. Then again, driving without a license was hardly the worst thing a thief-to-be could do.

I managed to think about it for a couple of moments before Henry came trundling back into the farm hauling…

"A _van?"_ I asked, incredulous and excited at the same time. "You brought me _a van?"_

Henry laughed as he hopped out of his cruiser to unhook the van. He patted it on the hood and grinned at me, "You've had your eye on this old beater for the longest time." He told me, and it was the biggest proof he'd given me so far that he'd known Cooper. He didn't even seem to notice the slip, "Figured it'd make sense to give it to you now. You might need it."

I found myself grinning as I helped him unload the appliances from the trailer. Rudy jumped in to help, as well, and I managed to guide the two of them to the appropriate places to put them without dropping anything or running into either of them. They didn't let me carry anything particularly heavy, which probably would have stung if I wasn't very well aware of the fact that I couldn't heft a refrigerator on my own, like Henry apparently could.

Now, don't ask me how a place that had been abandoned for upwards of sixty to eighty years was able to run the appliances that were brought, or how the house itself didn't look the least bit outdated in the face of modern appliances. I don't know any better than you do. And with the thought in my mind of how long it had been since Sly's parents had died here, I was really starting to have questions about how almost everything else in the world still looked the same as it had in Sly's time.

I had a brief existential crisis about it while I hooked up all of the appliances and found that they immediately started buzzing with electricity. The fridge started humming, the microwave display lit up and beeped loudly at me.

Eventually, I shook it off and decided it was best not to think about it. The less I worried, the better for me in the long run.

For some time after things got set up, we sat in the living room and talked.

Or, well, _they_ talked. I sat there without a clue what they were trying to tell me.

It lasted a few moments, until little flecks of memory started popping up and scaring the crap out of me when I abruptly interrupted the two of them to finish their sentence. This happened several times and it gave me some _major_ memory whiplash.

I hated it.

It felt _nasty._ And just wrong in general.

"_Maybe I should handle this."_ A voice sounded in the back of my head, giggling fondly, "_Relax, okay? I've got this. I've got you."_

I felt… Safe, suddenly. I trusted this voice, even if I couldn't identify it. It didn't sound like my usual head-voice, somehow, but it was similar. And it felt safe.

So I relaxed.

And the next thing I knew I was standing in the front doorway, grinning and waving to my guests as they made their way out the gates and off the property.

The reality of that crashed into me after they were gone, and I furrowed my brows in concern. I'd completely dropped off for the entire rest of their visit. I didn't remember most of the day―the sun was going down, now. That bothered me. What in the _hell_ had I done?

I was thankful they were gone by the time the realization set in, though. I didn't need them to see the ensuing crisis I had over it.

When I managed to gather myself enough to go back inside, I decided eating something would be beneficial. I hadn't eaten breakfast this morning and I got the strangest feeling I hadn't eaten lunch, either. So dinner was a priority.

Staying here alone was admittedly a little lonely, but I found that I didn't mind terribly much. No company meant I could freak out in peace and sort through my feelings without having to worry about the questions I could get about it if someone was around… Not to mention I needed my space and I needed frequent breaks from company if I wanted to stay my regular self.

I wandered the house for a while after I ate, wondering and being delighted about the fact that I could stay up past sunset because, miraculously, the electricity worked and I could turn on most of the lights in the house. There were a couple of rooms (the living room, namely) that didn't have viable lightbulbs, but that was more than alright.

It occurred to me while I was wandering that the house lacked any mirrors except for the one in that dark bathroom. I hadn't ventured back in there, yet, and I wasn't sure that the light worked, anyway.

I decided I ought to try, because I was starting to wonder about my eyes. Back in my world they'd been a sort of reddish brown that my mom gushed over. She called them wine-colored. The vague memory I had of looking at myself in the mirror in the orphanage told me they weren't that color anymore. And, sure, my recall could be flawed. That was possible.

It just meant that I'd need to check to be sure.

I stepped into the dark bathroom and flicked on the overhead light, blinking in the brightness when it came on immediately. When my vision cleared, I turned to the mirror and examined myself. The first thing I noticed was that my hair was an absolute _mess._ It was sticking up off my head in three different directions… All the trouble I'd gone through to prepare for company, and I hadn't really thought to clean myself up.

_Note to self, invest in a brush._ I thought, combing through the knotted and dirty hair with my fingers.

Then, I leaned in closer to look at my eyes.

… Not wine-colored anymore. Just plain, deep brown.

"Rip." I muttered, pouting, "There goes my trademark."

Thoughtfully, I smoothed down the mask-fur around my eyes before wandering back out of the bathroom to ransack Sly's parents' room again. A little searching and I hadn't managed to find what I was looking for, but I _knew_ I'd seen it here _somewhere._

I searched through several other room before nearly smacking myself when I remembered where I'd seen it.

I slipped into Sly's room and there, on his bedside table, was a box of thief masks.

I snagged a black one and headed back to the bathroom, tying it around my face to see how it looked.

Looked fine, and definitely more professional. Not to mention having the mask on would keep my fur from getting too ruffled under it and starting to look like a real-world raccoon someone had rubbed all over a balloon, like it did right now. That would be good.

In the meantime, however…

I frowned at my reflection as I untied the mask. My hair was still huge (and probably oily as hell on top of being tangled and full of static), and I could see the dirt clinging to me in places from working out yesterday and sleeping on the ground before that. I was filthy.

Doubtful, but hopeful, I turned on the water in the shower.

It came on with little delay, and after only a couple of adjustments and about thirty seconds of waiting, it was the perfect temperature for a shower.

I shucked off my dirty clothes and dumped them in the washer to be dealt with after my shower.

I took a long, hot shower and used the ancient bottles of product left over from Sly and his parents to make sure I actually got clean. It was more relaxing than I had anticipated, and thankfully I was also able to dry off despite not having a towel.

Sure, it took me probably an hour to blowdry my whole body, but it was worth the wait and the trouble when I ended up being fluffy and soft as a result.

I started the wash-cycle and went to bed with my hair braided.

I didn't dream.


	8. The Adventure Begins

_A few weeks later…_

I wiped the oil off of my face with a lazy swipe of the back of my hand. I only really succeeded in smearing it from under the edge of my mask fur all the way up to my ear.

"Damn…" I uttered, "This thing really _was_ messed up."

I stepped back a bit to observe the van for possibly the millionth time today, shaking my head. It was looking better now than it had before, that was for sure, but it still wasn't anywhere near perfect.

"All that work just to get it _running."_ I grumbled with another shake of my head, half-surprised and half-impressed. The amount of work I'd put into this van was, frankly, _astonishing._ That I'd managed to get it running surprised me more than I wanted to admit. "... Least all I've really got left to do is change the oil." I supposed.

And I got back to work, ready to do exactly that.

Just as I was preparing to finish that off, the sound of footsteps and rustling plastic broke my concentration. I popped my head up and barely turned before I saw Henry approaching with a grin on his face. He offered me a water bottle from the hand not holding a bag before he said anything, and I happily chugged it―turns out fixing vans is tiring work and you sweat a lot more than you expect.

(That may have had something to do with how ungodly thick my fur was, though.)

"Been workin' on that junk heap all month, haven't you?" Henry asked, brows arched high and lips quirked in amusement.

"It's not a junk heap," I argued good-naturedly, "It just needs work… And a new paint job."

This much was true―while it looked better now, with the dents buffed out (which took _forever)_ and a new windshield and tires and side mirrors, it still needed work. And paint. Maybe more paint than any other kind of body work, if I was honest. I'd pretty much exhausted all of the buffing and re-shaping I could possibly do, and that was a good thing. The van had been my pet project ever since I got it, and pretty much every other thing on the farm that needed any kind of work had suffered for it.

Not that there was that much to do―mostly, it just meant that I hadn't given the rest of the house the paintjob it needed… Or hung the new front door.

Henry chuckled and held up his bag. "Well then it's a good thing I got those cans of glossy spray-paint you were hankering for, huh?"

"You actually got them?" This, of course, got my attention. I'd given Henry the lowdown on the _colors_ I'd need to paint the van, though I hadn't told him any of the actual designs I was planning. I really didn't expect him to remember the colors or get the paint _for_ me.

He handed me the bag, "Sure did."

I grinned as I inspected them to find that, yes, he had gotten the correct colors. _Heck_ yeah. Today was great! The van was in working order, save for a few minor things (like that oil change), it was barely noon and I had company I enjoyed, and I _also_ got to paint the van today. I couldn't have been happier if I tried.

"Well, then it's a good thing I've got this 'junk heap' running, huh?" I smirked, and only felt more smug when his jaw dropped.

"You got that rust bucket _working_?"

"Sure did!" I felt myself swell with pride as I admitted it, "Now stop gaping and help me cover the tires!"

To his credit, he did manage to pick his jaw up to come help me.

The base color of the van was a rich black that glimmered in the afternoon light and made me giddy to watch as it dried. It already looked _so much better_ with just the base color… Even if it _did_ take two of the four cans of black Henry had brought me. If it weren't for the fact that I'm extremely Extra™, the black probably would have satisfied me, but…

Well, I _am_ extremely Extra™, and that should explain exactly why I was not satisfied with the base color being applied.

Now, when I wasn't actually working on fixing the van, I had spent a great deal of time making full-size stencils of my new calling card symbol. It hadn't been easy, and I'd messed up a fair few of the small trial versions before I finally got them right enough to be confident in the full size ones. I had about five pieces to the official full-size stencil, and a color assigned to each one written right on the stencil itself.

The voice that had spoken to me the day I got the van had been a lot of help, in the interim. They'd given tips and brainstormed with me and been a rather solid tie-breaker on the color choices for the official calling card. I knew that it was likely every other Cooper had simply used the same types of card but that plain, monochromatic blue wasn't really my style. I needed to put a personal spin on it, you know? So mine ended up being dark blue/green, light blue, and _bright_ green, which meant my van stencils were the same colors, but with a neutral gray circle behind them.

I spent the next few hours painstakingly applying each stencil to both sides of the van, checking to be sure it was _right,_ waiting for it to dry if it was, hitting each stencil with a second layer of paint, waiting for it to dry again, and _then_ moving on. And, sure, it was tiring and tedious as hell, but it didn't bother me too much. Really, if anything, I enjoyed it.

The sun was beginning its descent toward the horizon by the time everything was dry, and I stood back to examine it after removing the window and tire coverings.

"_It looks so good,"_ The voice complimented, clearly delighted, "_Oh, it's not what I'd have done, but it's gorgeous."_

I smiled as an involuntary reaction to the praise.

"Wanna take 'er for a spin?" Henry asked, nudging me with a grin and distracting me.

"I don't have a license―" I began, intending to turn him down. Then, remembering myself, I grinned sheepishly, "―but I'm gonna be breaking the law soon anyway, so I might as well start with that."

"Baby steps," He agreed, smirking.

My van, to my eternal delight, drove like a _dream._ Henry seemed pretty astonished that I'd fixed it so well―what could I say? My dad taught me a lot about cars and fixing them… Though I doubted Cooper would have had that kind of knowledge. I chose not to talk about how I'd learned too much. If necessary I'd lie to him.

Surely there were tutorials online.

We celebrated the success over a bottle of champagne.

"What happened to baby steps?" I asked, eyeing the glass he'd poured for me.

"Too slow." He grunted, shrugging.

I couldn't agree more.

"Okay, are we clear?" Henry asked, quirking his brow.

"Crystal," I told him, while Rudy and Lindsey nodded.

"Good―now get going." He said, shooing us toward the front door from his position at the dining room table. "And remember, any heists after this are _your_ responsibility to plan."

We nodded again, and allowed him to shoo us out of the kitchen entirely.

On the front porch, Lindsey frowned. "Wait, if Henry is staying here then how are we getting back to town?"

I grinned, leading the two of them over toward the barn. They followed curiously, and each glance back at them showed them sharing looks and furrowing their brows.

Grin only widening, I pulled the barn doors open.

"Simple," I told them, "We take the van."

"But isn't your van―" Rudy began, as I pulled the tarp off of the van that had only been there for this exact purpose, "... _junk…?_" He finished, uncertainly.

I giggled.

"Wait, wait." Lindsey protested, "None of us has a license!"

Dutifully ignoring her, I held up the keys and shook them invitingly, "Wanna drive, Rudy?"

He snagged the keys right out of my hand with a wide grin and all but jumped into the driver's seat. I scrambled into the passenger's seat while Lindsey squawked indignantly, then begrudgingly got into the back of the van.

"This is illegal," She grumbled, clearly fretting about it.

"Lindsey," I threw my arm over the back of my seat and twisted to look at her, "Everything we're going to be doing tonight is illegal. Henry can bail us out for a driving without a license charge―besides, _I'm_ old enough to have a license, if I wanted one. The drive _to_ the museum should be the least of your worries even without those details, though."

"I was trying not to think too hard about everything _else,_ Sophie."

I couldn't help rolling my eyes even as I pointed to my bag waiting near where she'd plopped herself down. "My laptop's in there. Just make slideshows or something―but for Pete's sake, you're gonna have to get over this."

She nodded, grabbing the laptop, "I'll try. But I think everyone in my position gets nervous on the first heist."

I puffed out a breath with a brief quirk of my eyebrows, then turned back toward the front windshield. "Hit it, Rude."

Grinning, he started the van and absolutely _floored_ the gas pedal and sent us hurtling on out of the barn, across the field to the gates, out of the gates, and on down the heavily wooded road. Much like Henry, he drove like a bat out of hell.

Nice to know _someone_ was ready for the heist.

… That's not a pointed jab at Lindsey, by the way. That's me genuinely being glad that at least _he_ was prepared.

Lord knew I wasn't―just not for the same reasons that Lindsey wasn't and I could at least _pretend_ I was ready. She was worried about the technicalities of it all, really. It was illegal, and that worried her. The consequences… I don't think they ever registered in her mind. The mere _act_ of breaking into a place and stealing something was an issue to her. And, really, what _would_ the consequences be for her? Short of getting caught in the van with Rudy while I was gone, there was little way for this job to go wrong for her. It wasn't like I would give her up if I got caught, since all she'd done was sit in the van.

The _consequences,_ meanwhile, were my primary issue. If I got caught… It wouldn't be good.

"_You'll be fine,"_ That voice spoke up again at last, and I was more than just tempted to believe it, given the conviction they had. "_I'm sure of it."_

_Thanks._ I thought at them, and I felt their response more than I heard it.

It felt safe. Reassuring.

Rudy pulled to a stop a few blocks away from the museum, away from any prying eyes.

One thing, that was all I needed from the building. One thing that was virtually unguarded at night. And it had been so long since there was a Cooper reported, nearly _ten years_, that there weren't any particularly fancy security systems to stop me from getting into the building. Even if there were, with all the practice I'd put into Cooper-patented thieving tricks in the downtime I'd had between fixing the van and making stencils, they wouldn't really be much of an issue.

All I had to worry about was getting in, getting the goods, and getting out.

Not being seen was simple. Not getting caught was simple. I had all I needed to ensure my success, and with the voice's confidence in me backing my own confidence up it wasn't hard to convince myself to unbuckle my seatbelt.

I didn't say anything to my teammates as I hopped out of the van, and they didn't say a word to me, either.

I took one deep, steadying breath.

Okay.

I could do this.


	9. Jewel

Careful not to fall, I scaled the building next to us without another backwards glance and started toward the museum.

_Just one artifact._ I kept reminding myself.

I stopped on the roof of the museum, surveying the surrounding area. Henry had been thorough in his surveillance―everything matched up more or less with his pictures. Which meant my entry point was…

I turned invisible, slipping past the first guard with ease and entering the building. My tail only just missed his face, but he didn't seem particularly bothered. He just sniffed and grunted, never moving from his spot. For all he knew, it had just been the wind.

I dropped to the ground, rather noisily if I'm honest, and slowly moved along until that got boring. I didn't know if you could pull off two moves at once, but now seemed like a good time to try. I sped up time, while invisible, and found it was actually pretty easy since I knew both moves fairly well. I wasn't willing to try a third on top of that, though, so I was glad when I got close enough to the artifact to be able to justify no longer speeding up time. This was an area that required patience and finesse.

Just because _Henry_ hadn't seen any fancy security around it didn't mean there wasn't something set up to set off security if it was just _taken._ There were no visible security measures―no glass, no laser traps, and not a single guard in sight―but that _never_ meant there wasn't anything to worry about.

I crept closer, closer, and inevitably found that he had been right. There were no security measures set up. Short of a silent alarm, there couldn't have been.

I lifted the jewel slowly at first, seeing if anything set off from it being moved.

Nothing.

I tucked it into my bag and placed a calling card absently on its pedestal. Smiling, I glanced around for a way out.

_There._

I sprinted toward a pipe mounted to the wall that lead upwards, toward an open skylight that would have been a better entry point if not for the fact I'd have had no feasible way down. I scrambled up it swiftly, and, emerging onto the roof well-out of view of guards, I took a moment to breath.

Then, I took a moment to _stare._

Jacey was right. Paris _was_ beautiful from the rooftops. I felt something warm, something indescribably comfortable, and I smiled a little. I almost felt like… Like I was _meant_ to be here.

I shook my head and started across the rooftops.

No time to waste―even if the missing jewel wasn't noticed until morning it would still be best for me to be well out of the way by the time that happened. I didn't want to even be in _town_ when the police got here. It was too easy for me to have left something behind, or be spotted by a well-trained eye.

I landed gracelessly next to the van and piled into the passenger's seat.

And Rudy threw it into reverse and blasted back toward the edge of the city almost before I'd secured the seatbelt and closed the door.

"Did you get it?" Lindsey asked, eyes wide and excited.

I grinned breathlessly as what I'd just done finally set in. I'd robbed a museum. I'd finally taken on a heist.

"Yeah," I managed, withdrawing the jewel from my bag to show it to her.

She grinned in reply.

"I don't know what I was worried about," She confessed, not even sheepish, "I knew you'd be able to pull it off."

The familiarity, the _sureness_, threw me off for a second. But then I remembered that she had known the _real_ Sophie Cooper. Of _course_ she had known that I could do it, or at least thought as much. The real Cooper may not have necessarily been strong enough to be a thief, by her own admission, but I had little doubt that she would have tried anyway.

And sometimes I really felt like the muscle memory I had for the stunts I pulled off wasn't of my own making.

The rest of the ride back to the farm was more or less silent.

Almost as soon as we'd arrived, Henry guided me through setting up a ThiefNet account and listing the jewel for sale, and then insisted that it'd be best if we got our butts moving on out of Paris as soon as we could. While we were still new to this it wasn't a good idea to stick around one place for too long. We would learn to cover our tracks as we went, you know?

He went ahead and took Lindsey back to wherever the hell it was they were staying, and I was left alone.

I glanced at the mirror I'd put in the entryway, thoughtful, only to draw back in surprise when my reflection wasn't in the position I expected of it. Instead, it was leaning against the edge of the mirror's frame, smiling.

"_Good job, Caldicot."_ Said the reflection, in the same voice as the voice in my head.

Seeing how perplexed I was (and maybe even seeing I was scared), the reflection laughed. They cocked their head to the side, winking.

"_I know you're confused―I'll explain some other time. Just know I couldn't be more proud of you."_

And the surface of the mirror seemed to ripple for a moment before clearing and showing me myself again. I stared for a long moment before shaking my head and walking to my room.

_My life just gets weirder and __**weirder.**_ I thought, somewhere between annoyed and resigned.

One day, I was going to demand an explanation for all of this.

Today was not that day.

I was tired, I had to prepare for a move in the morning, and I had a jewel to be selling that I needed to have gotten rid of before we moved. Thankfully, when I sat down at my laptop I found that someone had finally placed an offer on the jewel. Seeing as the offer was substantial and I'd need money for food and gas once we were on the road, I only waited a moment or two longer before accepting. I needed it gone before morning, after all. I couldn't wait around all night for a better offer.

We negotiated the drop-point a bit before deciding on the Eiffel Tower, some thirty minutes after our current time.

I wasted no time in jumping back in the van and gunning it back to town, before slowing to a prowl near the tower. I wrapped the bag containing the jewel with a calling card on a string and slung it over one of the lower support beams of the tower. Then, retreating to the van, I hunkered down to wait.

After some time, a badger slunk up, eyeing the bag. He checked inside of it, nodded to himself as he withdrew the gem, and then shoved something I couldn't see into the bag and took off.

I waited until he was gone to retrieve the bag.

… Every cent of the price we'd agreed on was accounted for.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and went back home.

We were meant to leave by noon, so maybe this way I could actually get some sleep and have time to pack in the morning. It wasn't as if I really had all that much to _pack,_ of course, with my two outfits and sparse collection of belongings otherwise that could fit in my backpack, but it'd still take a little bit of time to get everything sorted out. I needed to make sure that I had a _good_ Bug-Out bag packed this time, you know?

I slunk into the farmhouse and locked the door, then slunk on back to my room and all but collapsed into my bed behind the makeshift curtain.

I was asleep before my head ever hit the pillow.

Heists absolutely wipe you out.


	10. Moving Day

"Sophie!"

I grumbled to myself, displeased at the sound of someone's voice breaking through the haze of sleep.

"Get up, it's 9 o'clock!"

I grumbled again, but now that I recognized the voice as Henry's and was at least awake enough to process what he was saying, I rolled myself out of bed. I was a little less springy and spritely than I wanted to be, frankly, but… Well, if I stumbled to my chair, then I stumbled.

I scrubbed the sleep from my eyes when I sat down, and I pulled the Thievius Raccoonus to myself. If it was nine in the morning, I didn't have a whole lot of time to document my first heist before I had to start making sure I had everything in order.

"Where are you, anyway?"

"Back room," I called in return, voice still rough from sleep.

The volume made me wince.

But then Henry was popping his head in through the door and giving the space a good looking at. His eyes scraped over the makeshift curtain of mismatched, clothespinned sheets, and then over the command center table I was sitting at. I waved at him tiredly.

"No luck sleeping?" He assumed, quirking a brow as he stepped in.

"Oh, I was sleeping fine," I laughed, rubbing my face again, "Just didn't get as much as I'd have liked."

"You look like you just woke up."

"I did."

He had the decency to look sheepish at that, at least. Then, his eyes scraped over the room again, and he seemed to make the connection.

"You sleep in here, huh?"

"Safest room in the house," I shrugged with a sleepy smile, "It was the only one with a door that locked before we started fixing it up."

He laughed, stepping quietly across the room to come to stand at my side. "Sorry to come bargin' in, waking you up earlier than you'd probably like, but you should probably be out of Paris before one and I wanted to give you time to pack―I'll have Lindsey and Rudy up at the site of the old orphanage by noon."

I nodded along, made a vague comment about needing to work on my first entry in the Thievius Raccoonus as soon as I had time, and he laughed. But he didn't stay terribly long after that, and no sooner than we'd said our goodbyes and he'd hopped into his cruiser did a feeling of discomfort rise in me. I'd gotten used to Henry―he was comfortable and familiar.

… And I probably wouldn't be seeing him again for a good, long while.

It made my stomach twist.

Sure, Lindsey and Rudy were _great,_ but I was still getting to know _them._ Henry was around almost every day, several hours a day if he got the chance. I knew him. I trusted him. And now I had to start the whole process over again with two complete strangers who _didn't_ have the blood tie Henry did that made him sort of accept I was a different person now than I had been before.

They'd known me before, too, and seemed to understand that the person they'd known was gone, but… But how long would that patience hold up? How long until they got tired of having to explain things from the past to me? Until they got tired of me knowing when I blacked out and then not knowing again afterwards?

I got the feeling it was really only a matter of time.

But I tried to push it away as I got to work packing up what I would need. Hopefully Henry had provided the other two with clothes or they already had their own, because I had nothing to offer in that department. As it was I owned two shirts and two pairs of pants and neither Lindsey nor Rudy was likely to fit into any of it.

With my spare outfit ranger-rolled into the bottom of one of my backpack's pockets, I picked through my stocks of food to grab what I could reasonably fit into the backpack. Even if we were going to be buying groceries soon, it was always a good idea to bring emergency food. I'd have to teach Lindsey and Rudy how to pack a bug-out bag…

For the time being, as I dumped my textbooks onto the coffee table in the living room, I considered what else I might need. First aid was a must, but I didn't know if there was anything of that nature in the house that was still viable at this point in time―using potentially hundred year-old shampoo for a week until I could get my own was a whole different ball game than trying to use _medical supplies_ that old. Any rubbing alcohol was probably fine, and I was pretty sure bandaids and ace bandages didn't have expiration dates, but any actual medicines or ointments were probably ready to be tossed some eighty years ago.

When I eventually tucked everything I thought I needed (that I could reasonably get from the house) into the bag, I sighed. Sat there for a moment, just thinking.

I'd killed about thirty minutes, at most.

Shaking my head, I went about documenting last night's heist in the Thievius Raccoonus and felt some small, worried part of myself ease a little bit. Couldn't begin to tell you why―and I'm not really going to attempt to. It's hardly important.

But with that done, I still had another hour left to get to the old site of the orphanage (I heard they'd knocked down the remains and left the plot empty, choosing to rebuild closer to the city) and regrettably knew the trip to only be about a fifteen minute drive. As much as I'm sure getting there early would make Henry happy, I wasn't about getting there just to _wait._

But if I stayed here, I'd be waiting anyway.

With nothing to do.

I groaned and forced myself out the back door, into the back yard and down into one of the fields. In my time living here, when I was brain-storming for the van's stencils or just trying to take a break from doing things all the time, I would take walks out back. There was the back yard, then the empty, overgrown field, and then a small outcropping of trees. There was a well situated in the center, and an apple tree that was finally, _finally_ bearing ripe fruit. I spent a few moments discerning which of them would be best to take with me, eventually picking out a large, _very_ red one. I grabbed a few more, in case Rudy or Lindsey happened to be hungry and in case the first one wasn't enough to fill me up, and meandered back up to the house.

I hadn't wasted near enough time.

Oh well.

If I drove slowly I'd get there after Henry left. Hopefully.

I didn't think I could say goodbye to him again without crying, if I was honest.

I headed back through the house to snatch up my bag and the keys, pausing in the entryway with the distinct feeling something was about to happen.

"_You should head to India,"_ Said that voice, coming directly from the mirror.

I turned to look at it, cocking my head to the side. "Why India?" I asked.

"_Rajan's old 'ancestral palace',"_ They said, making airquotes and rolling their eyes with a grin, "_Is there. Sly left a lot of loot when they went after Rajan that never got claimed by Interpol or anyone else. It's family tradition to go back for things your ancestors couldn't."_

"... But it's been like half a century," I pointed out, "Or more. Who's to say there's still anything there?"

"_If there isn't, it's not as if it's a wasted trip. India's well-enough out of the way to keep you out of trouble for a while."_

"It's at least an eight hour _flight,_ so I'd imagine so." I sighed, nodding to myself, recalling a rather well-off classmate who had spent far too long complained about how long it took to fly from Mumbai to Paris, "I'll have to plot a route, but…"

"_It won't be hard,"_ They promised me, "_It's been a long time since anyone was at war, so once you get to Bulgaria it's pretty much a straight shot through Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan."_

"... When _was_ the last war?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

"_Before Sly was born."_

Breathing a sigh of relief for this world apparently having its head on straighter than mine, I decided I'd just have to get my hands on a few roadmaps.

"_Bentley drew a few very detailed maps―you should be able to piece them together into something useable."_

"Okay," I agreed, a little weary, "Thanks."

They winked, then they were gone and I was staring at myself again.

Freaky.

I shrugged it off and made my way with my stuff to the van, spending a few moments doing as they'd suggested and piecing Bentley's maps from Sly's section into something I could actually use. I accomplished this, of course, by taking pictures with my tablet and more or less jigsawing them together based on an online map. Now, I know I could just use the online map, but I needed something stable and not reliant on wifi.

I plopped the tablet into the holder Henry had gotten me, so the map would be easy to see, and finally headed off toward the old orphanage as I started to chew at my apple.

Rudy and Lindsey were waiting for me when I pulled up, and they both grinned.

"There's our princess of thieves," Rudy greeted as I hopped out so we could discuss our plan of action, "Where to?"

Having finished my apple, I tossed the core up to the middle of the hill we were on. I gave the impression of thinking on it a little before saying, "I'm thinking India―Rajan's old palace is down there and I have high hopes that the loot Sly left is still there."

That they didn't seem to have any questions about who Rajan was was almost concerning. But it also proved Cooper had probably trusted them a whole lot.

Rudy and Lindsey shared a brief look, then both of them shrugged.

"Sounds like a plan," Lindsey said, climbing into the back of the van to start setting up her tech before we left. She'd apparently expected this to take a lot longer.

I watched her for a moment, thinking again that I hoped I didn't end up reaching the end of her patience with my lack of memory. She… It really seemed like it would be a bigger issue with her than it would be with Rudy. He seemed like he was just glad to have me, and she seemed fond enough of me but I really, _really_ got the feeling that could change far too easily.

Rudy watched her for a moment, then turned to me, "Can I drive?"

"At least part of the way," I granted, finding myself smiling, "It's a long drive, we'll probably have to switch out about halfway. Just depends on which half you want."

He seemed to consider that for a moment, then grinned sheepishly and held out his hand as if asking for the keys.

Laughing, I handed them off without further prompting and watched him absolutely _light up_ as he jumped into the driver's seat. I waited a moment, looking around. We still had time, and… Well. I really wanted a little time to settle my nerves.

Everything was so _weird_ but I won't lie―roadtripping with my two new friends sounded fun as hell. The furthest into Europe I'd ever gone before now was London with my mom and dad, which was… Different. For a lot of reasons. Driving from Paris to _India_ with these two? Hoo boy.

Well, what better way to make sure we were meant to be a team?

You never _really_ know someone until you have to be in a vehicle with them for an extended period of time.

Putting aside some of my anxiety, I climbed into the passenger's seat and strapped myself in.

And we were off.

I messed with my tablet's settings briefly while we were in a slower bit of traffic to keep the screen on so I wouldn't have to keep reaching over to turn it back on for Rudy every ten minutes. But after that and adjusting the zoom so he could see which roads we needed to take once we were out of Paris, I was pretty much useless until we left France, when I'd need to adjust the zoom again.

So I just stared out the window and watched as things crawled by until we were out of the city. And then I stared out the window and watched as things _flew_ by. Absolutely flew.

It was kind of exhilarating, frankly.

That differing reflection made an appearance about an hour and a half into the drive, raising their brows at me for… Whatever I was talking to Lindsey about. They popped up in the side mirror, looking quite amused indeed, and I was a little too taken aback by them being there to backtrack and see what had made them give me that look. By then Lindsey had moved onto something else, anyway, and I had to sort of politely nod and hum along like I understood and processed what she was saying.

That reflection was…

Kind of annoying, really. And really kind of creepy.

The three times they'd shown up so far, they hadn't done anything all that special―just told me something and then vanished back into the ether. I was starting to get… Kind of suspicious. Like, was this something I should be _listening_ to? Was I being lured into some kind of fae trap?

_They said they'd explain,_ I found myself musing.

"_I did say that, didn't I?"_ They asked in reply, sounding somewhat sheepish. "_Later, I promise. It sort of slipped my mind this morning."_

I resisted the urge to make a face at their sudden reappearance in my mind, only barely managing.

They just laughed, and it echoed in my head for the rest of the day.


	11. Tiger's Treasure

It took a couple of days (as one would expect) but we did eventually make it to India, and subsequently to Rajan's old "Ancestral Palace".

We went in without much plan other than "grab what you can and run".

Then, upon Lindsey's first aerial sweep of the premises―I _continually_ forget she's a hawk and can therefore _fly―_, we amended the plan to "Sophie grabs what she can and runs so she doesn't get caught". Because, as it turned out, _someone_ was still here. And they hired guards… Or the guards were just _super_ freaking loyal and so were their kids, but I doubted it.

"Have fun in there," She told me, "It's _crawling_ with hired muscle."

I got the feeling, as she said it, that if I'd been human she'd have asked if I was okay, because my face would have gone from a healthy color to dead pale in seconds. As it was, my fur hid any such reactions. As it was I just swallowed, groaned, and flopped against the rock formation next to me. "Lemme guess, they've all got a healthy loathing for anything gray with black stripes."

She gave me a sympathetic smirk, if such a thing was possible.

"Lovely," I sighed, resigned, "Well, no time like the present to get a crash course in robbing a place that _actually_ has working security and more than four guards on rotation."

She explained she'd gotten a few cameras set up to see where the loot was at (that she was able to find with her aerial sweep), and she was pretty sure I'd have to grab one piece at a time and then make like a bread truck and haul buns. This… Pretty much fit with what I remembered of the loot missions in Band of Thieves, since they were timed and you could only grab one at a time. But it was _also_ pretentious and ineffective to do it like that (I planned to rob the current owner _blind,_ thank you, I couldn't just make seventeen trips!), so I snagged a bag previously containing some kind of tech, strapped it to my thigh and said, "We'll see."

She blinked at me, then shrugged at Rudy and handed me an item she'd been tinkering with since we left, "Here, this should help. I've marked out where things are, so you can figure out which places to hit first."

It was… Practically a Binoc-U-Com, just with what I would come to recognize as the New Age Cooper Gang flair. It was half-finished, but in great shape for all that it was still a lot of wires and some metal plating. It was very thin and when it was finished I'd be able to fit it under my thief mask, but for now I'd have to put it over the top to avoid it tangling any wires or pulling out any of my face-fur.

Now, I said it was practically a Binoc-U-Com and _not_ a pair of cool glasses for a reason―the lenses _zoomed,_ it had working digital displays, and I could see she was working on audio features as well. That meant it had all the fixings of a Binoc-U-Com, just…

Lindsey Peck style.

I just nodded and got the thing on to the best of my ability, and I was off.

I was displeased, as anyone with sense ought to be, that Lindsey hadn't been kidding about it being _crawling_ with guards. There were so many… I was going to lose my mind. I already _was_ losing my mind. Moving while invisible was so freaking _tedious_ so staying out of sight was more of a task than it ought to have been.

I was less displeased and more frustrated beyond belief when I saw a rather wizened old tiger walking out of the palace itself. I could tell it was Rajan, but―good _gods_ he was _ancient_ by now. And my displeasure at seeing him faded somewhat when he kind of just meandered around near the steps. He looked kind of lost.

Not surprising. He had to be upwards of eighty by now, after all; if he was starting to get too old to take care of himself he might not even remember where he was.

… I seemed to recall him turning his back on a life of crime when he got out of prison, but I _think_ Jacey mentioned him moving back into the ancestral palace later on since he already owned the property.

I settled in to watch him a moment, rather than moving on.

I did this partially out of curiosity (and concern, admittedly) and partially just to see if he'd gone back to murderous rage in his old age.

But he didn't really do anything until a _second_ tiger came out, at which point he was led back up into the palace. And then, when the doors shut behind him, the other turned and shouted, "_You idiots, you'd best keep any thieves out! I do not want a repeat of Cooper!"_

I swallowed.

Rajan Jr, it appeared.

_This probably wasn't a great idea,_ I thought, but I shook myself out of my stupor and followed Lindsey's first holomarker to a piece of loot anyway.

I forewent the invisibility trick here, as well. If I was going to be a successful thief, I needed to be able to perform these sorts of things without it as well as I could perform them with it. It was different on the way there, but once I _got_ there I made sure I didn't immediately fall back on it.

The first piece was relatively easy. It was hardly even guarded―it went into the bag.

The second piece, I found, would not be so easy to get. As far as I could tell, a guard stood watch over it at all times. Even a sneak attack wouldn't work, since I didn't really have a weapon and I didn't pack enough of a punch to put a guard down without one. I had small, soft hands. Not meant for excessive force.

"_Turn invisible,"_ The voice advised, calmly, "_Sneak up to him, and strike him in the jugular. I've seen a memory of you doing that to a classmate once―remember what it did to him? Just adjust the force for your purposes."_

As it was pretty sound advice, I listened and tossed them an off-handed mental thanks.

I hopped down from my perch and turned invisible before he really even twitched in my directly and snuck up to him, trying not to shake from nerves. This would be the first time I attacked a guard. It was nerve-wracking.

I got right in front of him, reminded myself of the incident they'd brought up, and swung.

The guard stumbled back and fell, stunned, onto the ground.

I dropped the trick and hopped over him, grabbing the second piece of loot, and high-tailed it after dropping a calling card where it had been.

It wasn't necessary, since the guard had _probably_ seen me if he wasn't too busy being dizzy and dazed, but there was nothing like spiting angry tigers. Anything to rub salt in the wounds… Guy seemed like a jerk. Jerks don't deserve anything less.

Oh, and about the classmate thing―there was a guy in one of my classes when I was about thirteen or fourteen, and I'd known this guy… Oh, probably my whole life. At least since I started attending school. And I did _not_ like him, and he didn't like me even if we sort of stuck together as misfits when neither of our particular friend groups were around. He liked to take time out of his day to annoy the heck out of me, and I was usually pretty okay with it because, whatever, it was just _him._ It's not like he was doing it maliciously, like _some_ people. He was just filling his time. It was just that, this one particular day, I was _not_ feeling it and I told him to stop several times before warning him I was going to, well, karate chop him in the neck if he didn't stop. And he didn't stop even when I was gracious enough to give him about three more chances to stop, so I, you know, _karate chopped him in the neck._ And he ended up sitting with his head on my desk for like ten minutes without really even twitching.

And like, I like to think I'm a nice person (or at least that I was, at some point) but boy did it feel good to have some peace and quiet for a while when I did it―and he took my threats seriously after that, so bonus points.

Anyways, my life _before_ is an anthology of stories for another time.

For the time being, I just kept following holomarkers and hitting some of the easier pieces of loot on my way back to the van. I had a pretty limited amount of time now to get everything else without having to flee guards at every turn, since it was only a matter of time before my calling card was found or the guard snapped out of it enough to realize I'd been there.

I considered trying to contact Lindsey, but since she hadn't finished the Binoc-U-Com's audio stuff yet it wasn't worth the attempt.

As it was, I kind of just popped up back in the van and scared the crap out of both her and Rudy when I did so and dumped out my bag of loot.

I spent a moment hunting through our supplies before I found a knife I could use―some kind of kitchen knife, if I remember.

I didn't _want_ to have to stab anybody, but considering I was pretty sure that the guards wouldn't hesitate to use deadly force, I couldn't afford to not be armed. Not if I ended up in a situation where I couldn't just turn invisible and hit them.

"This'll work." I said, though I didn't mean to.

I strapped it to my thigh under the bag so I could grab the handle and pull it from under the bag easily. Quick access to deadly force! Great thing to give a sixteen year old.

"... I can't believe I'm setting her loose on a bunch of guards with a knife," I heard Lindsey say to Rudy as I left, "God have mercy on their souls."

I couldn't help laughing, but went about heading for another piece of loot instead of dwelling on it. The guard circuit on the next one I went for was… Weird. It was just two guards repeatedly walking into and out of the area, like two idiots who kept forgetting why they walked into a room and leaving, then coming back when they remembered. I sat there watching with brows furrowed for a long while before I decided I'd just deal with it the best way I could think of.

I dropped down behind one of them as they left and trailed them a little further away, then chopped him and bolted back to the area just in time for the other guy to be leaving. I hit him as well, then grabbed the loot, dropped a calling card, and booked it for the next piece.

I repeated this method, for the most part, with every guard I ran into. If I could get close enough to hit them in the throat, I did it. If not, I threatened them with my knife and prayed they actually thought I was a threat.

The one who didn't ended up getting stabbed and I did not relish it. What if he had a family? I didn't want to kill anybody.

So once I'd stabbed him and had a moment of panic over it I kicked him in the shin and grabbed the loot, then ran off again after yelling at him to seek medical attention.

It got me a bemused, "_What?"_ from him, which alleviated some of my panic as I headed back toward the hideout (and by hideout I mean the trees our van was hidden in) with the last of the loot. Thank gods he was the last one I had to deal with and the only one who had been willing to bank on me not stabbing him. He wouldn't be doing that again, I bet.

Regardless, as soon as I was officially off the grounds of the palace my stomach rolled and decided to introduce my last meal to the river.

Who knew guilt could make you throw up that fast.

I entered the hideout fully aware that my fur was ruffled and probably a shade lighter than it had been when I left.

"Well," I announced as I emptied the bag, "The bad news is it seems like Rajan ended up having a kid and he's a _jerkbag_. The good news is they're both kinda old so they're probably not likely to be threats."

"They might not be," A new voice agreed from the tree-line, and I spun to face the owner quickly. "But I might be."

I stared for a moment, getting a good look at the person before me. He was a tiger, as well, though he seemed… Leaner. A little less, for lack of a better word, _cartoony_ than Rajan or the other tiger. He looked less like he got stung on the nose by a bee, you know?

Just as I started to get concerned, and opened my mouth, he quirked a brow and his lips and continued with a snort, "That is, if I gave a shit. As it is though, grandpa's just this side of senile and my dad's a Fiendish Five and Klaww Gang sympathizer, so one of them isn't going to care and the other one's going to have a conniption about your calling cards but not be able to do anything about it―its a win-win."

"Who the _hell_ are you," Rudy asked, defensively, "And how did you find us?"

The tiger snorted again, giving a rather sarcastic bow, "Rajan the Third, at your service," He said with a tell-tale sort of grimace, "And I followed you," He motioned at me, "You left somebody conscious, ringtail."

"Is he okay?" I asked, immediately.

"His wife was giving him stitches right there in the middle of the walkway, but he should be fine." Rajan III assured me.

I was thankful that he answered quickly, and also that he apparently hadn't been there to watch me puke afterwards. Awesome. Cool.

"Newbie," I told him, sheepishly, when he _did_ raise an eyebrow.

"I figured." He laughed, nodding, "I haven't seen your calling cards before, and I've been told Coopers don't usually karate chop their victims in the neck or stab them."

I laughed as well, still sheepish, and rubbed the back of my neck, "I lack the family cane, at the moment," I justified, "So I lack any other means of incapacitating guards."

I shared a brief look with Lindsey and Rudy, and based on Rudy's immediate laugh and Lindsey shaking her head they already knew what I was planning before I even suggested it. So I just bit my smile back and observed Rajan for a moment.

"... So what was this I heard about 'if you gave a shit'?"

He smirked right back at me in reply, "If that's your way of asking if I want to join up, the answer's yes." He paused, then tacked on, "I mean, my dad's probably going to fly into a _murderous rage_ when he finds me gone, so as long as you guys can handle that…"

"The more the merrier," Lindsey shrugged, "And unfortunately Sophie has a penchant for going out of her way to piss people off. Especially when she's not going to be around long enough for them to retaliate."

A flash of memory caught me off guard.

"_Come __**on,**_ _Sophie!" A much younger Lindsey urged, standing in the doorway and looking around furtively._

"_Gimme a sec," I urged in response, holding up a permanent marker with a grin._

_On the wall in front of me, I wrote in simple block letters, 'Ritchie stinks!'. Satisfied, I ran off after Lindsey giggling._

"Sophie?"

I looked up, getting the feeling she'd already said my name several times. "What?"

"... Did you remember something?" She asked, worriedly.

"Yeah," I laughed a little, feeling odd about it, "I was writing something on the wall in marker… Telling _somebody_ they stunk."

Lindsey laughed, relaxing.

"No doubt _that_ was triggered by the pissing people off comment," Rudy snorted.

Rajan III watched on in something between confusion and concern.

"... Really annoying case of amnesia," I explained, feeling sheepish once more and all the more weird as a result, "Stuff comes back slowly, usually when these two remind me of something."

He nodded, confusion fading but concern remaining. "I see," He said, then, "Well, when are you planning on leaving?"

"Probably in the morning." I looked to Lindsey and Rudy, who nodded, "In the morning." I confirmed.

He nodded again, "I'll be back," He said, and then he was gone.

We sat tight for the time being, waiting with baited breath for him to do exactly that. Lindsey spent the moment setting up a sensor that would be able to sus out if he came back bugged, beak tightly shut. I tried not to let the nerves get to me, but it was hard. He was, after all, a complete stranger. We had no basis of trust just yet except for his word, which I would have to trust for the time being.

When he returned and Lindsey's little sensor didn't go off, and he more or less settled in with us to wait for the night, I retreated to a corner of the back of the van and curled up to scribble away in the Thievius Raccoonus.


	12. Regrettably Romantic

p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"When we left in the morning, of course Rajan III joined us./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Mentally, I quickly took to simply calling him Rajan or Reggie because it was quicker. I'm a thief, I gotta be able to think fast. Shortening details like names helps with that, especially when your name is freaking /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Rajan the Third/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" as opposed to just /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Rajan./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Anyways, in typical New Age Cooper Gang style, we had no idea where to go when we packed up and got ready to trundle away. Rajan had a suggestion―which was in Japan and was vetoed on grounds of not having a way to get to Japan without flying or renting a boat. Lindsey then suggested a local SHELL store. Rudy and I had nothing to add, and Rudy really, /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"really/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" didn't care as long as whatever we chose allowed him to drive instead of me./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"We did end up hitting the SHELL store while we were leaving, since it was like 4 in the morning./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Eventually we all agreed on Cairo after I pointed out that three of the last four owners of the Thievius Raccoonus had called it a good stomping ground for thieves. Sly said things were easy pickings during the Clockwerk parts caper, Jacey said it was way too simple to pull things right out from under people's noses, and my dad went there for his first heist and got away with more than he went there for because he found a bunch of unguarded, valuable crap./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"It sounded like Egyptians were either over-trusting, or over-confident./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Either way, it made my job easy./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Rajan and I scoped out hits in the Cairo Museum together, and due to someone asking within moments of us entering if we were dating, we ended up holding hands the entire time. I called him Reggie to his face for the first time (we'd known each other for a total of three days and didn't I feel pathetic for how fast the nicknames had to come out into the open) and he called me Soph instead of Cooper. It was strangely comfortable, but not anything I was willing to play with./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I'm not a pyromaniac, if you catch my drift./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"We picked out three possible targets before leaving, and it wasn't until we were almost back in the van that we realized we were still holding hands. We dropped them immediately upon noticing, shuddered, and wiped our hands on our pants. Then, we looked at each other, shared an apologetic look, then a sheepish one, and then burst into laughter./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"We climbed into the van still snickering./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Lindsey set about making plans while we detailed our hits to her, and it was quickly left to her to work on it when she waved my attempts to help off. And then I was left to my own thoughts./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"At first I tried to think about the job. We'd picked out a solid gold ankh that /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"had/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" to weigh about ten pounds (Lindsey said if it /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"was/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" ten pounds and was above 20 karats, we could fetch between $191,000 and $230,000 American dollars for it), a small stone tablet covered in hieroglyphs, and a crook and flail they'd pulled out of some nameless pharaoh's tomb. And how could I not think about that? I mean, the ankh was potentially worth two hundred and thirty /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"thousand/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" American dollars all by itself. I was crunching numbers in my head about it for a while, wondering what kind of hideouts we could afford to rent, thinking of all the /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"food/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" we could buy…/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"But after some time, my mind started to wander./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Over and over, back to Rajan./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I kept thinking how gentle his hand had been in mine, how soft his fur must've been―I'm a good thief who wears gloves, so I wouldn't know―, and just… How macho he was. He was definitely almost all muscle, and he was gruff while maintaining a certain level of kindness, like Henry but my age and more gruff than kind. He was a jokester, too, and to top it all off he'd been just… /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"So/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" willing to play the part of my boyfriend./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He was perfection with claws, and I felt pathetic for thining so. I hadn't even known him a week and I was already sort of falling./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Not even on my third heist yet. It was /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"ridiculous./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"We Coopers are a long line of romantics, it seems./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Hoping to distract and preoccupy myself, I reached out for that voice I'd been hearing now for over two months. /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Hey./spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" I prodded, /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Does now count as 'later'?/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Oh, I suppose."/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" They said with a chuckle, /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But I'm not sure you want to know."/span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I conjured the mental image of me standing there with my hand on my hip, brows lifted… Since I couldn't do it for real without looking like I was crazy. Which, hey, maybe I was, but I didn't want to /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"look/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" that way. Last thing I needed was my team questioning my mental competency./span/p  
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-447c9595-7fff-3a40-4724-10f5ea20ff63"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter, serif; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Laughing harder, the voice gave in quickly, /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Bitter, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Oh, alright."/span/span/p 


	13. Third Heist

The explanation I received made sense, I supposed, considering everything I knew so far. I nodded slowly, as noncommittally as I could, and it got me some fun looks from the others. I didn't dignify said looks with an obvious response, just nodded to myself again and muttered, "Yeah, that might work, but…"

Seemingly drawing the conclusion I was thinking out loud, they returned to their business.

"_Quick thinking,"_ The voice told me, "_You shouldn't have nodded, though."_

_I am well aware,_ I groaned back, _Shut up._

"_So anyways,"_ They continued as if I hadn't spoken, "_I'm not exactly needed now, so I'll just head back to where I usually hang out."_

I bit my lip, then, trying very hard not to sigh out loud, _No, stay. I like having someone to talk to who knows what's going on._

I got the impression that made them very, very happy. So we chit-chatted for a while and I found them to be significantly less creepy or annoying when we actually _talked_ instead of them just popping in from time to time.

We were cut off from talking too much more by Lindsey announcing she had a plan.

Using the tech we'd stolen from the SHELL store, Lindsey would hack into the security systems and turn off the cameras and such. Then, I would go in with Rajan to grab the loot. Rajan would handle the tablet, which was reported to weigh up to twenty-seven pounds, while I dealt with the ankh and the crook and flail.

Once we were clear on the plan, I decided a nap was in order to keep me on my toes during the actual heist.

Lindsey woke me up just before she went with Rudy to go hacking, leaving me in the van with Rajan to wake up a bit. She'd pretty much figured out I wasn't ready to go as soon as I woke up unless she scared the crap out of me, and she seemed to have a moral objection to panicking me into gear as soon as I woke up. I appreciated it.

For the most part, being alone with Rajan didn't bother me. It wasn't like it was _hard_ to ignore the small, childish crush I had developed. And it wasn't hard to understand _why I had it._ Rudy felt more like a brother than boyfriend material for reasons I didn't understand and Henry was _actual blood family,_ so Rajan was the first guy I could potentially see myself dating that I'd spent more than ten minutes in the presence of since I got here. And he was pretty cool, so…

Low standards met, you know?

That said, it wasn't hard to be alone with him. Especially not once I started focusing in on the whole 'stay calm' aspect of job prep. A thief who isn't calm is no thief at all.

Or, well, a thief who isn't _panicking_ is no thief at all.

When Lindsey came back, she almost immediately sent us out.

"Okay, okay, geez, we're going!" I found myself grumbling as she all but shoved a finished New Gen Binoc-U-Com into my hands and shooed me out of the van.

Rajan followed closely after and as soon as we had our coms on we were off.

Weaving through the streets side by side, we pulled off some pretty amazing synchronization, especially since it was our first mission together.

The museum guards we encountered didn't stand a chance. I kept my knife sheathed on my hip and just knocked them on their butts using the dreaded karate chop to the neck while Rajan… Just kind of bowled them over or knocked their heads into the nearest stable surface. They never got a chance to call for back up.

Rajan had the tablet before I made it to the ankh, and though he objected at first I told him to just head back and wait for me.

When I did recover the ankh and the crook and flail, I piled them carefully, upright, in the bag I'd used back in the Ancestral Palace and prepared to leave as well. It was as I was doing so that I passed an old display in the basement where they'd taken most of the loot when the sun set. Something gold glinted, catching my eye and making me do a double-take.

Was that…

I nearly squealed in delight.

It _was._

It was a Cooper cane―the display showed Sly and Carmelita, and the small plaque read that he'd given the cane up to the museum in his will. There was also a well-meaning joke about him attempting to steal the Clockwerk parts from them all those years ago. As much as I respected his choice to give the cane to them―it was his cane, and he could do whatever he wanted with his stuff―, I still needed something _other_ than my tail to signify I was a Cooper.

As such, I snuck right into the display, snagged the cane right out of its holder, and plopped my calling card down with a scrawled note on the back that read, '_Sorry! I needed it.'_ With it in my hands I legged it out of the basement and wondered at how it had turned out like this. I'd made off with two of my marks and a family heirloom in one go.

I was living up to the Cooper name, for sure.

Lindsey stared at the cane for a good hour after I got into the van. Rajan and Rudy looked a little surprised to see it, as well, but went about their own business quickly enough. Rudy pulled up my map on my tablet to start plotting out where we could go, and presumably just to get a feel for the roads.

Eventually, I got somewhat annoyed with Lindsey's gaping and tossed the crook and flail at her before plopping the ankh (which _had_ to be ten pounds or more, holy _crap_) onto her little table and shaking the whole thing. She swiftly snapped out of her deer-in-headlights act while I busied myself with polishing my knife.

"Well, now we have some stuff to hock," She said, somewhat uneasily, "Except I don't know any buyers."

Frowning, I set my knife aside. "Pass me my laptop."

"O… Kay…"

She did so, and I pulled up Thiefnet before handing it back to her, "List everything for sale," I said, first, then began to explain, "First come, first serve or best offer. Try to close on deals within an hour."

She looked a little perplexed, but started listing the items for sale regardless after I explained how to do that as well. Then, furrowing her brows midway through listing one, she asked, "Wait, won't they ask questions?"

"It's a black market network exclusively for criminals," I said, a little flatter than I intended to, "You have to be connected to even have an _account_ and no one's stupid enough to ask questions in public―anyone who does is probably a cop."

That was what the voice had told me, at least. They'd given me a specific set of login information and explained some delicate inner workings of the site never seen in-game. It had been highly enlightening and had definitely helped me start to figure out how to sound less like a newbie.

I read over Lindsey's listings when she was done, tweaked some wording here and there, and allowed her to post them.

Rudy started driving, probably fairly aimlessly, while we waited. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to where he was going, since I had money for gas and he drove well enough to get away with it even this late at night.

After a long moment, Lindsey announced we had buyers.

"Where do we make the drops?" I asked.

"Well, one is at Giza, which we passed like three seconds ago…"

Rudy made a sharp U-turn right over a road divider that jostled the van so bad and made such a nasty scraping noise that both he and I apologized to the van. _Out loud._

"The other is just a few miles up North." She finished, when Rudy and I were done patting the van and whining like children. "Speaking of the North, I got a tip from someone called 'Furrball_of_the_Tundra' about a temple up that way loaded with goods."

"_I know that guy,"_ The voice chimed, piping up for the first time since before I'd napped, "_He lives in the tundras―probably lives in the temple and wants me to come visit him. It's been a hot minute."_

I furrowed my brows a bit as I prepared one of the drop bags. _Name?_

"_Acanthus."_


	14. Unlucky Numbers

After we made the drops, getting some _large_ sums of money for both pieces that had sold, we decided we may as well head up to Acanthus' temple. I didn't mention I knew his name, though, just said it was probably something we should check on.

Rudy wanted to take a break for the night, Lindsey wanted to get there as soon as possible.

It was a good day's drive there if we followed all driving laws and actually drove like regular people.

But Lindsey was in a hurry, for reasons I wasn't certain of, so the decision was made for us to start tonight.

Thing was, though, that Rudy looked ready to drop. Ready to just thump his head onto the steering wheel and pass out with his foot on the gas. I hated seeing him so exhausted, so I volunteered to stay up and drive for the night.

"Aw, you don't have to―" He was interrupted by a yawn, though he tried valiantly to continue, "―I can keep going."

I shook my head, feeling very much like a mother scolding a child, "Rudy, I slept all day. I can drive tonight," I moved over the back of the seat to sit next to him up front, "Besides, _you _need to get some sleep so you can drive _tomorrow."_

Reluctantly, he agreed to my logic, and we pulled over long enough for him to climb into the back. He passed out pretty much as soon as he curled up. Lindsey wasn't far behind. What actual _children,_ falling asleep before midnight. It was adorable, and I wished I could have unfolded my blanket to cover the little brats up. But I was busy and I wasn't asking Rajan to do it.

I drove for quite some time, silent and fairly sure everyone else was out for the count. I considered talking to the voice, but my attention was mostly on the map and I couldn't really afford the distraction. I trusted them to tell me when to turn, sure, but it was different than being able to sort of see where I was going. Not to mention, I was a new-ish driver still, and I wasn't used to navigating and talking at the same time.

"Driving at this time of night is unlucky."

Rajan's voice caught me off guard, but I managed not to jump or shriek in my surprise. I just found a spot to slide off the surprisingly empty road into an impromptu temporary parking space. I hadn't seen any signs stating it was illegal (not that I, a thief, gave much of a crap), so it was probably safe to pull over for an hour or so. I glanced at the clock to see exactly what he'd meant by it being unlucky to drive, and watched the clock tick to 12:59, then to 1. Ah. Thirteen.

Made sense, and made more when I remembered felines are usually nocturnal, so their internal clock really _would_ have one in the morning as thirteen rather than one in the afternoon.

It hit me after that that raccoons are usually nocturnal _too_.

"Well," I said, leaning back as I shut the engine off, "What do you suggest I do for the next hour?"

"We could get to know each other," He suggested, smiling at me as he climbed into the passenger's seat, "We _are_ still basically strangers―we could benefit from talking more."

"Sure," I agreed, though I was a little nervous I'd say something stupid over the course of this.

What if I ran him off? By, like, being _super weird?_

He smiled at me, and my stomach did a little somersault from nerves and my stupid crush. I heard a soft giggle from the back of my head and didn't get a chance to snap back before Rajan was speaking again, "Favorite colors first?" He suggested.

"Green," I answered, "Like… Bright, iridescent green. Like _neon_ green."

Laughing, he replied, much more simply, "Crimson." Then, "Music genre?"

"I listen to pretty much anything but I usually prefer rock and alternative rock."

"Me too!" He grinned, "Book?"

And we continued like that for a while. I felt bad that he was coming up with all the questions and categories, but as soon as I answered one, he would answer as well and fling out another topic before I got the chance to. He seemed to either have it planned out or was good at coming up with things on the fly.

Every answer that matched up between us made us grin, and surprisingly enough we ended up grinning almost nonstop. We had a lot more in common than I expected.

When he eventually asked for my birthday, I didn't think very much when I answered. He frowned a bit in reply, uttering, "Hm… Born on an unlucky day, at an unlucky time… Two wrongs don't usually make a right, but in your case…" Trailing, he shook his head before telling me his birthday.

We continued the game for a while before I noticed the clock had ticked on to 2:05.

Rajan went quiet when I started the van again, and I puzzled for a moment over what he could have meant about an unlucky day at an unlucky time, and two wrongs making a right. It didn't really make much sense to me, if I was honest. Being born on the thirteenth didn't necessarily make it unlucky, did it?

But as I puzzled, I remembered my dad's favorite reminder about my birthday―I'd been born on a _Friday._ Friday the thirteenth, at one in the morning, give or take a few minutes. Double thirteen, plus some other superstitions thrown in, and that was a pretty nasty cocktail of bad luck.

Except Friday the thirteenth had always, _always_ been a good day for me. Thirteen in general was a good number for me, along with multiples of it. It was my favorite number.

I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

Rajan smirked in reply to the smile that lit up my face. "Seems that both of us are surrounded by unlucky numbers." He mused.


	15. Uncomfortable Dreams

When dawn came, we still weren't in the Tundras yet, but we were getting close. After we got out of the more populated areas, I decided that speed laws were for noobs and pressed the gas pedal to the floor, so we made much better time than we would have otherwise. Later research told me it should have taken closer to forty hours to get there, but in the end it took closer to thirty. That's just what happens when you hit a good 110 miles per hour (which would have been, uhh… 177 kilometers per hour, I think) for ten or more hours of the trip, I guess.

I drove until nearly ten in the morning, at which point Lindsey and Rudy were awake and Rudy was ready to take over the rest of the trip. I was more than willing to let him as I started to get drowsy and had to suppress yawns.

So we pulled over long enough for me to get in the back with Rajan, who had stayed up with me, and as soon as Rudy was strapped in we were off again, with him taking a page from my book and putting the pedal to the metal. I curled into one of the seats, and Rajan did the same while Lindsey kept to the tech, trying desperately not to look at the speedometer or the scenery flashing by faster than you could look at it.

Rajan fell asleep before I did, tail twitching up onto the seat and the top of my hand.

I pulled my hand away, curling my own tail up around my waist. And then I buried my face in it and tried to breathe slowly. Eventually, an old deep breathing technique dragged me off into dreamland, and I appreciated it.

* * *

_ I knew immediately that this time, I was not Jacey. _

_ In front of me was what appeared to be a shrine for Rioichi Cooper, candles burning lowly. As I blinked a little and dragged my eyes over the rest of the photos and found it was more a shrine to the rest of the Cooper clan than just Rioichi. And based on the view I had of the shrine, I could guess I was kneeling before it. The lack of hard floor under my legs implied I was on a cushion. _

_ "Sly?" _

_ The sound of Carmelita's voice made my body turn, lips pulling into a smile at the sight of her. "Hey, foxy lady." I greeted, somewhat teasingly, "How's work?" _

_ The words were uncomfortable on my tongue, but they came out of Sly's mouth with practiced ease. That's to be expected for someone who appeared to be _ ** _married_ ** _ to the woman he was flirting at. But that was my _ ** _grandma._ **

_ She smiled at the teasing, but not very brightly. "Oh, it's going well enough. And yours?" _

_ Smile dropping, I cocked my head to the side, "Are you okay, babe?" _

_ Again, the words were uncomfortable on my tongue. _

_ Carmelita seemed to hesitate, chewing her bottom lip and fidgeting in a very un-Carmelita way. She was always so much more confident than this. Was something wrong? _

_ Finally, sighing, she shook her head and said, softly, "Sly, I'm… I'm pregnant." _

_ Shock was the first thing to register. It was almost strong enough to knock me right out of the dream… Probably would have been if Sly wasn't just as surprised as I was. _

_ "Really?" I asked, "You're… You're not pulling my leg?" _

_ She shook her head again, hesitance and discomfort easily turning into something closer to sadness. But it swiftly turned into surprise when my lips turned up in a face-splitting grin. _

_ Then, it faded into something like pleased confusion. _

_ "This is wonderful," I stated as I got to my feet, and all the confusion melted away. _

_ She smiled in return, though it wasn't as intense as mine was, and I pulled her into a tight embrace. Soon enough she was returning it full force. _

_ And the love was uncomfortable enough for me, was overwhelming enough for me, that I was pushed out of Sly's body and just sort of floated off to the side. Just… Floated and watched the scene unfold. They hugged for some time, which wasn't so uncomfortable when I wasn't receiving everything Sly was feeling in that moment―then it was just kinda cute. Hooray, happy couple! You know? _

_ Then, pulling back a bit, they kissed. _

_ And then they kissed _ ** _deeply._ **

_ And I watched, frankly kind of disgusted (because that was my _ ** _grandparents_**_) until they finally broke apart to smile at each other. _

_ I slid back into first person not entirely of my own volition, but before anything _ ** _else_ ** _ weird or uncomfortable could happen, the dream began to fade and everything seemed to slow down. _

* * *

_ The warm familiarity of sharing with Jacey was a welcome change from the mushy scene I had just witnessed. _

_ For probably the millionth time, I was watching the sun set over Paris. It was as beautiful as it always was, and I had learned not to question how it was never any less stunning than it was the first time. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, after all. _

_ This time, I was not alone up here. At my left was no doubt Damien―who else?―and to my right a somewhat aging Sly. He wasn't elderly, not quite. But he was definitely getting old. His face-fur was more silver than gray, black rings fading into a dark gray instead, and there was the knowledge of _ ** _ages_ ** _ in those eyes. _

_ "I think I finally understand why you love this view so much," Damien commented, smiling. _

_ I nodded along, having expected this. At my side, Sly smiled in approval. He seemed to almost be supervising us, for some reason. I chose not to dig too far into it, though I knew I could. Jacey's mind was familiar enough by now I could dig up her whole life story and live it out in a dream if I _ ** _wanted_ ** _ , but instead I took what came to me. _

_ When the sun finally sank below the horizon and the city lights flickered on, Damien seemed… Frankly, kind of dazzled. His eyes were wide and pleased, hand twitching toward mine on several occasions. I just grinned and half-watched him as I looked at the city as well. _

_ Eventually, however, we seemed to sense the need to leave and began to do so. Damien went the safe route, down the fire escape and then off through the streets―like the sensible guy he was. Sly and I went over the rooftops. _

_ My father (my _ ** _grandfather_**_) followed right at my heels with more grace than his age probably should have allowed. I wasn't concerned, though. If anyone could make the trip home it was him. He wasn't old enough that I needed to worry he would fall. _

_ But… _

_ Then he did. _

_ He curled in on himself, seeming pained, halfway across a gap between buildings. _

_ And he plummeted downward. _

* * *

"Dad!" I sat up quickly, reaching for him.

But then my surroundings processed.

Rajan was stirring slightly in the seat next to me, and we were absolutely alone in the van.

For lack of any better ideas for lulling him back to sleep, I reached out to scratch behind one of his ears. He purred loudly and curled up tighter, dropping right back off.

As soon as he did, I curled back up myself, fully intending to go back to sleep myself. As unsettling as it was to wake up _ alone _ in the van with Rajan, I figured it couldn't be _ that _ dangerous. I'd have woken up if there was any kind of scuffling. So it was just a matter of falling asleep.

It was getting… Fairly chilly for me. Not cold yet, just sort of chilly―which told me that Rajan and the others were probably cold. And they'd only get colder the closer we got to the Tundras. I had a thick enough coat to keep me from getting more than just kind of chilly, and if I pulled my jacket on I'd be golden.

Still, I wasn't immune to the occasional cold chill that was more due to nerves than to the actual cold, and I shuddered.

And a moment later, an arm like a steel band wrapped around me. Rajan curled protectively around my back, and I couldn't see him well enough to tell if he was awake or not. I chose to roll with it, shuffling just a little closer―even if _ I _ didn't necessarily need the warmth, he could benefit from mine.

Soon enough, I fell back asleep.

I didn't have any more dreams, thankfully. And I was vaguely aware, at some point, of the sounds of the van doors opening and closing, and the van turning back on. Some time after that, the feeling of a cover being draped over us. Rajan didn't so much as stir, and I could feel a draft coming through it. So I groggily pulled it tighter and tucked it around him the best I could before falling back to sleep.

Lindsey woke us at nightfall.


	16. Polar Recon

"We're at the temple," She told us simply, albeit through a fit of uncontrolled giggles.

My first thought in reply to this was to throw my jacket at her.

"Then why aren't you wearing a jacket?" I asked, and tried very hard not to come off as embarrassed.

I _was_ embarrassed, of course. That was somewhat of a compromising position to be found in with someone I'd only just met. But Rajan didn't seem bothered, but that was _Rajan._ I got this feeling that he was just generally more stoic and unmoved than I was.

Shrugging, Lindsey pulled the jacket on, managing to stop laughing, "Anyways, I got visual of an otter―looks like he probably owns the place."

I nodded, moving up toward the front of the van, noticing that the aforementioned otter seemed to be pacing back and forth in front of a window up on the second floor. Looked cozy up there. Probably a residential section of the temple.

_Is that Acanthus?_

"_That's him all right."_

Though it had been more idle pondering than a direct question, I have to admit it was nice to receive an answer. And, though I didn't mean to, I nodded in reply to the answer… And had to play it off, much like I had in Cairo, as me planning away and _not_ me talking to myself. Or the voice in my head.

"Doesn't look too tough…" I uttered, knowing full well that looks didn't mean _jack_ in this universe. And otters are far from defenseless. "So," I turned to Lindsey, "Should we bust up in there like we own the place, or do recon first?"

I already knew what I was _going_ to do, because there was only really _one_ reasonable option, but giving Lindsey a hard time right now sounded like fun. Especially after the wake up call she'd given me. Giggly little…

"Usually I'd say we do the second one, but the sooner we can get out of here the better." She replied.

Shaking my head, I gave her a slightly disapproving look. "Trick question," I advised, clicking my tongue, "Recon is _always_ the first order of business."

Looking a little flustered, she nodded her agreement. Good. That should be enough of a hard time to satisfy me and the part of me that liked holding grudges.

I put on my Binoc-U-Com to take a closer look at the temple, zeroing in on a couple of points of interest. The room containing Acanthus was of the highest priority, but I also had to identify possible entrance points and guard patrols. The biggest issue was that Lindsey hadn't added a camera to the Binoc-U-Com yet, which made this… Clunky. Unrefined.

But it would work out.

I dug into my bag and removed a camera we'd gotten from that SHELL store that I had laid claim to as soon as Lindsey indicated she didn't need it for anything. It would work.

I took a couple of pictures of the places I could see from the van, but there was only so much I could do from _inside_ the van. My field of view was kind of limited. Even with the Binoc-U-Com and camera there weren't many vantage points of use here.

Frowning as I ran out of spots to photograph and found I hadn't even gotten enough to compile a decent mental map of more than just the front wall, I set the camera and Binoc-U-Com down for a moment. I thought for a moment about bringing my jacket out with me―I could feel the chill in the air seeping in since we had the van's engine off, but it wasn't bothering _me_ very much.

I heard the voice giggle at the thought.

I shook both the thought and the voice's reaction off, reminding myself that I'd thrown my jacket at Lindsey, who was clearly still wearing it. I'd have to do without and hope my fur was thick enough to keep the bulk of the cold off of me.

I moved toward the back doors of the van, and Rudy gave me an alarmed look.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"To get more recon shots." I replied, raising my brows at him. "I can't see everything from the van."

"You're going out there without a coat?" Rajan's brows pulled together at the same time that Rudy's did.

"I have thick fur," I shrugged, resisting the urge to shudder or slap my hand over my mouth. The voice could speak through me even without permission. _Nice._ Cool. I hated it. "I can handle cold―gets un_bearable_ in summer."

Both of them looked disbelieving, and Lindsey seemed like she might jump in on a lecture right at that very moment, so I was quick to take the chance to hop out and close the door behind me. Bunch of worrywarts… If it weren't so annoying right now I'd have been thankful as hell for proof they cared about my wellbeing.

As it was, I just marched into the snow and tried to stay low.

A couple of minutes proved that, yeah, sure, I got _cold_ out here in a t-shirt and jeans and nothing else, but it was bearable. Kind of like sitting in a room with a _really_ good AC. It probably wouldn't have ended up being too cold for me to handle unless I stripped to my skivvies and laid face down in the snow. That was pretty cool!

"_I was born up in this region,"_ The voice mused after I figured that out and got back to trying to take pictures.

"Yeah?" I asked, pausing to take a picture before moving to a new spot. "Well there's another difference. I was born three miles North of the Mexican border."

"_And yet I'm the one who speaks Spanish."_ They snickered.

My lips pulled up into a smile as I shook my head and rolled my eyes. I snapped a couple more pictures and kept my eyes trained on a couple of guards stationed outside to make sure that they didn't catch sight or scent of me. Leave it to Acanthus to hire huskies… Oh well. Couldn't blame him for wanting guards that would be good at their jobs.

"I never actually learned Spanish," I admitted under my breath, "My dad speaks it fluently, and mom speaks it fairly well… I only know the bare minimum necessary to get by in a conversation." Shaking my head again, I laughed, "One time, at summer camp, all the campers had a tanning contest? And I got disqualified for naturally having a better tan than everyone else because I've got Latin blood on my dad's side."

The voice snickered a little. "_Your abuelo?"_

"And pretty much everyone before him, yeah." I agreed.

They made a considering, interested noise.

I made my way to a new vantage point. One of the guards lifted his head to sniff―I flattened myself to the bluff I'd manage to get onto. When no one pursued me, I peeked up and found he hadn't managed to catch sight of me. That was good. I was glad about that. I wasn't particularly in the mood for playing a game of dog and raccoon, thanks. Especially not with the gang barely even hidden and barely thirty feet away.

"That was _way_ too close." I muttered.

"_No kidding."_

Shaking my head again, I got back to my recon.

It wasn't for another few hours that I went back to the van. By then the cold had seeped down into my body. I still wasn't shivering, but I was looking forward to pulling out my blanket from my bag and burrito-ing myself off in the most secluded corner of the van possible.

My return allowed the other three to relax, and it wasn't very long afterwards that we all settled down to sleep. And it didn't take long after that for me to follow them back into dreamland.


	17. Tundra Temple

I had, very consciously, curled up as far away from Rajan as was physically possible within the confines of the van.

Though I wouldn't have necessarily _minded_ ending up cuddling him again, I _would_ have minded waking up to Lindsey laughing like a deranged fangirl. That said, I also went out of my way to make sure I wasn't close enough to the other two to end up cuddling _them_ in the middle of the night either. I wasn't taking chances.

Though I hadn't ever actually dug my blanket out, I still woke up at some point to someone laying one over me. The precious few seconds I was awake to tuck it closer around myself proved to me it was mine. Lindsey must have found it.

I dropped back to sleep.

Waking up, sweating, some time later than that, I gathered enough understanding of my location and situation a little quicker than usual, and chose to toss the blanket across the space of the van. It landed in an over-warm pile on a shivering Lindsey, who was sure to appreciate the heat _literally radiating off of it_ in the cold of the van.

Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but it _was_ warm to the touch.

She rolled into it, wrapping herself up in the fabric, and I counted it as a win.

I may have also muttered something along the lines of, "Like a boss," when it landed on her. I don't remember for sure if I thought it or if I said it out loud.

Feeling that I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep, I tucked myself up in the front seat with my laptop and opened Paint. I didn't have anything better to do with my time―couldn't plan any heists until Lindsey was awake to brainstorm with. Couldn't think of anything else useful to do, either.

Well, I did turn the van on long enough to dispel most of the unholy chill that _definitely_ bothered the other three more than it was bothering me.

Given that they all stopped shivering after a time, I deemed it was warm enough and shut the van off, returning to my drawing.

It took another few hours for anyone to wake up, and I spent the whole time doodling away at one picture. I didn't usually have the patience to spend that much time on _one_ MSPaint doodle, but I had a specific idea that I couldn't really pull off if I wasn't patient.

It was pretty much done by the time that Lindsey roused herself and plopped down at her little command center.

She seemed a little surprised I was already awake, and of course asked what exactly I was doing. Shrugging, I showed her my doodle. She blinked at it for a moment, shook her head, and turned back to her command center.

"Artistic thieves…" She muttered, somewhat disbelieving, "Didn't realize I was teaming up with _Daisuke._"

I suppressed a snort at the comment. I hadn't realized that show existed here―or a variation of it, anyway.

That _had_ to be interesting.

I'd put it on the list of things I needed to check out when we got somewhere with wifi.

It took a couple more hours after that for the boys to wake up, with Rajan rousing first and remaining where he was to watch Lindsey and I go about our business. By this time, I'd finished my drawing and was leaning over the back of the seat to watch Lindsey and occasionally offer my input on the plan she seemed to be trying to put together.

Some time after that, Rudy finally blinked himself awake and sat up.

Almost as if in response, Lindsey hopped out of her seat and left the van. Rudy hopped out behind her, ears alert. I imagined he was probably worried.

Can't say I blamed him, considering the blast of cold air that entered the van as soon as she opened the door.

After a short silence, Rajan spoke up, looking a little awkward.

"Sorry about… Er, yesterday? I don't know why I―"

I shook my head, "Don't sweat it. It was comfy." I assured him, "Lindsey's just a squealing fangirl."

His lips lifted into a slight smile, "So you didn't mind?" He asked, just to be sure.

"Not at all," I smiled in return, "It was really comfy," I repeated, "And Lindsey's squealing put me off of it, sure, but…"

His smile must have widened a whole inch.

Unfortunately, our heart-to-heart was cut short by Lindsey and Rudy's very sudden, very _windy_ return to the van. Both of them were thoroughly windswept and covered head to toe in fluffy white snow. Though saddened by my loss of ability to have a private conversation, I decided not to be a child. No reason to complain, after all. They were my friends and what was I going to say? 'Go back out in the obvious snowstorm so I can talk to the guy we just met a week ago'? Yeah, no.

"Okay, so," Lindsey began, shuddering as she tried to shake off the snow, "Get in there."

I must have blinked at her for a second too long or given her an uncomprehending look, because she gave a half-exasperated sigh that lost all of its steam because of the way her voice shook from the cold.

"After examining our avail-vailable information," She said, "I have formally d-decided that 'busting up in there like w-we own the place' is the best pos- possible strategy. Past wh-where we hid the van, there are very few viable hiding pl-places, so staging a sneak attack isn't likely to work." Pausing and shaking herself again, she seemed to think for a second, "And you've got the thickest fur, so you should just be able to duck out and run in. The doors are wide open and there's currently a blizzard with frick-all in terms of visibility so all the guards are somewhere else. Kind of like I want to be."

"So, basically, if I go out there I'll be covered in snow in less than five seconds." I asked, just to be sure. "Which will let me get to the door without anyone noticing me."

"Yes, precisely." She sighed, sounding relieved, "And I mean, you don't have to go _now,_ but you should go before the blizzard lets up."

"Then I'd better go now," I snorted, hopping over the back of the seat and stretching, "Or else I'll break out in a nasty rash of procrastination."

I slipped out of the van as quietly as I could after that, trying to keep too much snow from blowing in. I also threw an order at Rudy to start the van and run the heat for a while so they wouldn't all get sick, which he obediently did.

Good.

The wind immediately ruffled most of me, and before I even got the chance to be mad about _that_ I was covered in snow. Okay. That was fine. I blinked and swept as much snow out of my face as I could. Squinting, I tried to remember which way the temple was, and when I was able to orient myself properly I began walking. When the open doorway became visible I saw exactly _no one_ guarding it and decided I might as well head on in anyway.

Worst case scenario I ran into an ambush and had to have a crash course in butt-kicking.

That'd be fine.

My dad taught me how to protect my face so I should be fine.

I walked in, glanced around for a moment, and found the main room deserted.

Standing there for a moment, I shook myself off and just kind of hoped that I didn't end up with soaked through clothes. I didn't really have any other replacements on hand.

"So what's this Acanthus guy like, anyways?" I asked, glancing around again as I walked further into the temple.

"_Easy-going, kind, not all that opposed to tricking people, not likely to care if you steal that statue over there…"_ I did so, because there was no real reason _not_ to, "_He was a good friend to… Well, they'd be __**your**_ _parents, technically."_

"Good friend like part of their gang?" I paused, glancing at the window next to me to see if they'd choose to appear there.

They did, and gave me a pleased smile and nod of agreement. "_He was primarily a sponsor―financed ventures, managed their sales on ThiefNet, stuff like that."_

I smiled, choosing to continue on.

I didn't bother much with stealth―there wasn't much reason to. In my wandering I ran into exactly one guard who just kind of looked at me, looked around, and then… Just. Turned around and walked out of the room.

No alarms, no screaming.

Just a silent retreat.

It was a welcome change of pace from what I learned to expect in the games.

And aside from wandering along and interacting with that single guard, I spent most of my trip to the room I'd seen Acanthus in snagging anything that looked like it might be worth some money. I needed to save up for a real hideout, after all. It'd be kind of funny to save up using money I got from selling Acanthus' stuff on ThiefNet… If only because he'd be able to see it.

Shaking my head and readjusting my bag full of pilfered loot, I finally found the room I was looking for.

It was empty, for the moment, but it wasn't as if I couldn't just sit down and wait for him. I was a big girl. I could be patient.

I just had to find something to do in the meantime.

Eventually, I got myself a cup of coffee and sat down to stare at the door. It took probably an additional hour after that for him to show up, so let's call it an hour and a half just to be safe. I made sure to contact Lindsey with the limited audio tech in the Binoc-U-Com to let her know I was going to be a while and that I wanted to talk to this guy. I may have implied to her that I was going to tease him for having such lax security, which wasn't exactly untrue.

But I got the feeling _I_ wouldn't be talking to him.

No use figuring out what I planned to say if I wasn't really going to be part of the conversation.

But after that hour and a half, in walked Acanthus, who then paused to stare at me for a second. He was… Just a little bewildered. But then he smiled, laughed, and shook his head. He moved toward the coffee pot to get himself a cup and sat down across from me in the chair I hadn't taken.

"Always one or two steps ahead, aren't you?" He asked, almost seeming fond.

And at about that second I figured out I'd been right to assume that I wouldn't be talking to him. Everything goes fuzzy around the edges for me―but I know someone who can tell you exactly how things went down.

* * *

Well, I guess that _I'm_ telling this part. Can't blame her for asking me, though, considering me being in control makes things hard for her to remember, if she remembers them at all.

I'll skip any introductions to get right to the point and back into the story.

At about that moment, I pushed forward to respond and, contrary to what she's said _implies,_ Sophie willingly moved out of the way. Or at least it felt like it was willing, because it was so easy to nudge her aside. I dunno, maybe my familiarity with Acanthus overwhelmed the need to ask for permission.

Regardless, I got control in short order and shot him a grin, "Oh, I suppose I am." I rolled my eyes, good-natured and oh-so-glad to be with someone familiar who I could actually _sass,_ "But really, 'Canny, you should have expected it―I knew it was you. You may as well have said 'hey kiddo, I live in a temple full of pricey statues and jewelry, and I would _so_ love to talk to you after you rob me blind in it'."

Snickering, he nodded along in acknowledgment, "I have to try, don't I?" He asked, eyebrow quirked, "Now, about me getting you up here…"

He trailed for a moment―long enough for me to get just a little bit concerned. Acanthus usually had everything he wanted to say planned out in advance, like any well put-together rich man. He had an image to uphold. Hesitations were… Rare. And I'll be honest: they were _freaky._

"_Solnyshko,"_ He began again, slowly, and part of me settled hearing him call me that again after all this time―he'd always called me that. Henry told me it meant 'little sun'. "You know I have no shortage of money or items to give or for you to take. And I know you aren't particularly fond of receiving outright help from anyone when you've already decided to do it on your own… But I also know you are _probably_ without a hideout right now. Is that correct?"

"Aye," I agreed, slowly, more than a little bit nervous, "It is, 'Canny, but why bring me all the way up here just to remind me of that?"

"Because I can get you one," He said, "In Paris, if you'd like."


	18. A Deal

"... What?"

Smiling, he repeated himself.

I blinked once, twice.

And grinned. "Really?" I asked, just to make sure, and he nodded so I had to physically restrain myself from jumping out of the chair and lunging across the space to hug him. "A hideout in _Paris?_ Oh my gods, 'Canny―"

I cut myself off before I could continue, biting down on my lip. I needed to be a little bit more collected than this. Especially considering that this was _Acanthus._ He may love and treat me as family, but I couldn't be too quick to take an offer from him. I _knew_ him. There was always a catch when he struck deals like this with people.

"A _good_ hideout in Paris," He assured me.

"What's the catch?" I asked, somewhat flatly.

There had to be one.

There _had_ to be.

I was knowledgeable enough of the world to be unwilling to believe something so good could come without a price. That Acanthus would be willing to set me up was a given―but would it be worth it? He had to want something serious in return. He always did. The only time he didn't was when it came to me stealing his stuff.

Shaking his head, he laughed a little. "There is no catch. Not for you." Another little laugh, "Never for you."

I pursed my lips as I considered this. Then, slowly, I nodded. That seemed to fit. Acanthus hadn't ever outright _offered_ me anything before but I got the strangest feeling that that had only been due to my own stubbornness rather than any lack of desire to help me. He knew me as well as Henry―if I didn't think I needed help, I sure as hell wasn't going to accept it.

I grew up being told I was weak. _Knowing_ I was weak. Knowing my body wasn't going to last if I was the one using it because the soul _in_ the body is just as important as the body itself. And that made me _very_ eager to be able to do everything myself.

But, well, I didn't need to do that anymore. And the thing was?

Sophie needed the help. Wandering really wasn't her thing, nor was it the rest of the team's. And they could wander all they wanted _anyway,_ but having a place to go home to? That was helpful. Lord knows that's the only reason I…

Well, nevermind. That's not important.

"Okay," I agreed, still just a little wary, "But where is it, exactly? And how soon can we set up shop?"

Smiling, Acanthus sipped his coffee, "_Solnyshko, _did you really think I wouldn't already have it arranged for you? I've had two days to prepare." He sat the cup down, "As for location…"

* * *

When I was finally back in the driver's seat, I had been walked back down the foyer. There was a scrawled note clutched in my hand, and I recognized the handwriting easily. Seeing an address and an excited little 'hideout! :D' written next to it, I deduced that the other one had either talked Acanthus into giving us a place, or he'd offered it up freely. Either way, I was able to understand that this was where I needed to direct Rudy to when I got the chance.

I stood there a moment longer to make sure I had my bearings before heading back to the van.

The blizzard hadn't yet let up, but it was easing up a bit and Rudy started the van as I approached. At least I'd be able to dry my clothes off fairly quickly.

I explained as best I could while I waited to be fully dry and warm, and unsurprisingly the others were a little taken aback to learn that Acanthus was the very same 'Furrball' who had tipped us off to the location of the temple. I shrugged it off, for the most part, and tried to shrug off other questions as well… Particularly the question of how I knew Acanthus.

Thankfully, I recalled James mentioning him in the Thievius Raccoonus, so I had that old excuse to fall back on. I just had to add that he felt familiar on top of that.

Neither Rudy nor I particularly wanted to leave the van running all night despite the warmth and comfort that came from having the heat on. When I was done being the subject of twenty questions, we decided (over the course of several awkward silences) that our best bet for staying warm would be to huddle up together. Rudy and I spent a moment building up a sort-of nest out of the seat covers and our jackets, and then directed Rajan and Lindsey into the center of the nest.

They awkwardly cuddled up to each other, but seemed to relax a bit more when Rudy and I curled up around them as well and boxed them in. Rudy and I had the thickest fur, after all―we were basically fluffy space heaters, and our fur would trap the heat of the other two and keep it from getting terribly cold in the nest. Then, pulling the blanket over top of all of us, it didn't take long for the other three to fall asleep.

I laid there for a while afterwards, thinking.

Regrettably, I ended up thinking about Rajan. Mostly I wondered what exactly had been going through his head when he decided to cuddle me. Had there been a real reason? Had he done it unconsciously? There was no way to know for sure without asking, and I didn't fancy the thought of waking him up to ask him. Or asking him at all, really.

Soon enough, my mind wandered to how carefully he'd been holding me―like he thought that I might break if he held on too tightly. And then it wandered to how freakin' _cute_ he looked when he was asleep.

Thoroughly embarrassed and frustrated with myself, I shut my eyes tightly and breathed deeply through my nose. Eventually, the tried and true breathing exercise knocked me right out.

… And I dreamed.

_I blinked, and in front of me (no, above me), Damien smiled and offered a hand._

_Grinning sheepishly, I accepted it._

_Somehow, he managed to haul me to my feet with those pencil arms of his. But neither of us managed to really keep our balance―when I was on my feet, he stumbled back and I pulled him forward to steady him. Unfortunately all I managed to do was smoosh our noses together. Both of us stumbled again, just slightly, and Damien tipped into me trying to regain his footing._

_And our lips touched._

_Everything screeched to a halt._

_Neither of us moved for a moment, though we both blushed._

"_Well, geez." I said, when we finally managed to move away from each other without tripping or falling, "If you wanted a kiss, all you had to do was say so, Dames."_

_It had never been a mystery to me that Jacey was in love with Damien, and I knew they ended up having children later. Still, seeing the moment they'd apparently __**admitted**_ _those feelings while in the first person was… Mortifying. Much like with Sly and Carmelita, my main issue was that this was my __**grandparents.**_ _I didn't want to be here for this!_

_Damien and I slowly pressed our lips together again after taking a moment to laugh in embarrassment. Both of us were scared a little bit hesitant._

_And I_

forced myself awake.

Heedless of the time, I slid out of the nest and checked to see if the blizzard had let up. And, seeing that it had, I decided now would be a good time to start heading for that address.

I couldn't go back to sleep after that.

Frankly, if I kept having dreams like that I was going to find a way to _actually_ astral project myself back in time to smack the _crap _out of Jacey and Sly. I didn't want to see any of that. It was bad enough I had my own childish crush to worry about―I didn't need to have to deal with their romance on top of that.

Starting the van, I grumbled to myself for a while before managing to make it to a stretch of road far enough out of the snow that I felt comfortable pinning the gas pedal to the floor. And I kept it there for the duration of the trip, except when I had to pass through a town to get gas.

Aside from that short stop, I didn't slow down for anything else.

Towns and empty stretches passed by in smears of color that I didn't think to look too closely at. It was so late at night (early in the morning?) that I barely encountered anyone else on the road, and the few that I did didn't seem terribly interested in getting in my way or calling the local police.

"_And I thought __**Henry**_ _had a lead foot."_ Was snickered, softly, when I realized it was nearing five in the morning and I had just seen a sign welcoming me to France.

What time had I even _left_ Russia?

Jesus.

"_Ooooh, almost 250 kilometres per hour."_ Followed that, "_In a hurry?"_

"Not in a hurry," I uttered.

Cooper just snickered again.

Still, it got me to let off the gas a bit and I eased gradually down to a reasonable speed to be driving through towns and rural countryside.

"_That address is near Fontainebleau,"_ Cooper mused, "_Beautiful area."_

"Yeah?" I glanced at the address again in the dim light.

"_Yeah. Not that the rest of France isn't pretty, but… I dunno. Fontainebleau is just really gorgeous. In a more rural way than Paris is."_

"Is Fontainebleau not in Paris?" I asked, then glanced back to make sure the others were still fast asleep.

"_Yes __**and**_ _no."_ She snorted, "_Fontainebleau is a commune in Paris Île-de-France."_

"I see," I said, though I did not at all understand what that meant.

"_It's a suburb, I guess."_ She tried, lamely, to explain it a way my dumb American brain would understand.

"Makes sense," I nodded, because _that_ did. "... Is it kind of like how Mesa Arizona is a city but is usually considered to be part of Phoenix?"

"_I guess?"_

I spent a few moments once I got to the correct street chewing my lip and hunting for the correct address on that street. The houses were fairly far apart, and the property was well-protected from prying eyes. It was hard to see anything but the house itself. The yard looked _huge._

Oh, I was all about this.

I drove up and parked just outside the garage, shutting off the van.

"_The keys are in your pocket,"_ Cooper told me, helpfully.

I dug them out and headed for the door.

When the door unlocked and swung open, I was temporarily overwhelmed. It may have been lack of sleep. It may have been that I hadn't opened a house door since we left Paris a little over a week ago. It may have been a lot of things.

Regardless of what it was, I had to linger in the doorway for a moment and blink back slightly overwhelmed tears.

Then, I was able to venture in and investigate the dark house.

The ground floor had one bedroom, which I was tempted to claim but didn't just yet. I'd have to see the other bedrooms before I made any official decisions.

Then, on the… First floor? It's the first floor in Europe, right? Second floor in America. Second floor.

The second floor housed _six other bedrooms_, all of which had an ensuite bathroom―or, well, a _shower_ room. So there'd be no fighting over the bathroom, at least. We'd all be able to set ourselves up just fine.

After surveying it a moment longer, I decided I'd make temporary arrangements and let everyone else actually _pick_ their room later. I didn't know how much longer they were all going to be asleep, after all.

Heading back out to the van, I managed to heft Lindsey up out of the nest without waking her. She just sort of grumbled in her sleep and I carried her up to one of the bedrooms, laying her down in the bed. I did the same with Rudy, who was a little more unwieldy to carry and who snuffled happily at my neck after some minor squirming before his unconscious mind recognized who was holding him.

Rajan proved to be a bit more of an issue―he was undoubtedly heavier than Rudy was, and I _didn't_ think he'd be quite so happy to be carried.

Sure enough, as soon as I touched him, he was awake.

And he came up swinging―claws almost catching me in the face before I caught his arm and ducked out of the way.

Blinking at me for a moment, his ears flicked back and he smiled sheepishly, "Oh. Sorry, Soph."

My heart thudded at his use of the nickname and I very much wanted to kick myself for the response. This was _ridiculous._ I'd known him for a _week._ What in the… Ugh.

"It's fine," I said, somewhat flatly.

He seemed to interpret it as me being somewhat annoyed he'd almost mauled my face off, though, so thankfully there were no questions about my mood. He just followed me into the house and upstairs, where I let him pick his own room since he was obviously awake enough to do so. He quickly decided and flashed me a smile.

"Thanks, Soph." He said.

I couldn't help giving him a small smile in return, "No problem."

"Night," He gave a brief wave and ducked into the room.

"Night," I replied, and stood there like a statue for a moment because the cheerful smile he threw over his shoulder made my heart start tap-dancing.

This was ridiculous.

… I wasn't going to be getting any more sleep.

With a sigh, I picked out my own room and laid down to stare at the ceiling and try not to think about… About Rajan and I.

Together.

Like some freaking _middle schooler._


	19. One Year Later

Spinning my cane anxiously, I watched as Lindsey made the exchange. I knew she had it covered, that we'd been at this long enough that she knew what she was doing, but I couldn't help it. I got paranoid thinking of her dealing with this crap by herself. Say what you will about hawks, but Lindsey isn't exactly the epitome of a threat.

"Another day, another deal." She sighed at me, with a good natured roll of her eyes as she hopped back into the van.

"And another theft," I pointed out, quirking my brows. "Let's not forget how those jewels were acquired."

Snorting, she rolled her eyes again, "Yeah, well, I'd just like to thank Muggsy for having such a second-rate security system."

"Cheers, bro, I'll drink to that."

Minor recap: Muggsy was a Muggshot enthusiast. Think he may have been related? Like a grandson or something. Certainly looked like the guy―real name was _Albert,_ though, and he was so dang enthusiastic about being _just like_ ol' Muggshot he took up trying to be a gang member. And this morning, in search of some missing loot from Henry's personal stash, we ended up hitting Muggsy's base, and hitting it _hard._

He never knew to expect us and wasn't at all prepared.

We left him tied up for Henry and his Interpol folks to find later.

The call we'd gotten from Henry before the drop implied he was _very_ amused to have found the dog strung up by the shreds of an old tank-top.

Other than that, though, we hadn't really done much this past year.

There'd been plenty of heists, sure, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Just some public spots, then some more private establishments, and so on and so forth. I'd mostly been hitting rich executives for the past four months or so, though that was more a matter of getting some _real_ money out of the ordeal than any particular grudge I had against them. Thankfully, rich folks in this universe were typically _slightly_ less slimy than the ones in the real world.

None of them could figure out how I kept getting in and past their security, but I was getting to the point I was pretty highly wanted. My entries in the Thievius Raccoonus were getting long and exciting, much like everyone else before me.

Now, a year older and most certainly a year wiser than when we started, we unfortunately had bigger fish to fry than snagging some socialite's family heirlooms to sell on the black market.

Apparently, someone out there was targeting Paris.

With bombs.

Couldn't freaking tell you _why,_ or why it was our problem and not the problem of the police, but that was how things stood. We'd been getting tips for months, and we'd been doing what we could in the meantime, but we hadn't gotten very far. We also hadn't gotten Henry involved on advice from one of the tipsters. Getting Interpol involved wouldn't help, really. Not in the long run. They might be able to stop this person temporarily, but they had enough people behind them that they weren't likely to stop if they were in prison.

And Lord knew Interpol wouldn't kill them.

Not that _I_ particularly wanted to kill them, but hey. Whatever had to happen, I guess.

If nothing else I could throw them at someone who _would_ kill them. Like Acanthus, maybe.

Psh, nah. Acanthus would just throw them to someone _else._

Too complicated.

I'd deal with it myself.

So far, Lindsey hadn't had much luck figuring out who the mysterious rudeass was, but she was trying. The lack of reliable leads didn't help at all―but I couldn't blame anyone for not coming forward. When dealing with a bomber, it was hard to get reliable tips. Everyone was too worried about getting blown to bits. Rightfully so, especially in this guy's case. They'd started a long time ago, had _really_ started in on it about a year ago.

On the bright side, the hideout Acanthus had provided us with was still safe and apparently difficult for police to find even when our van could be seen from the road most days because we were heathens who parked it in the yard instead of the garage. It was definitely a boon when it came to needing to run home quick after a hit and provide Henry with enough time to come up with a reasonable excuse for why we'd gotten away _again._ It also provided us the peace of mind we needed in order to hunker down and try to figure out what we were going to do about _le bombardier de Paris._

… Sorry, still don't speak French. Just wanted to add some flare to calling them the Paris Bomber.

Soon arriving home, we clambered on out of the van and waltzed on into the hideout with matching smiles. I tossed greetings to Rudy and Rajan as I passed them on my way into the kitchen, since Lindsey and I had more than earned a quick snack.

They greeted me in return, both already dressed for what we would be doing after Lindsey and I finished up.

Speaking of Rajan…

I had, despite my woes from the year before, managed to hide my annoying crush on him from everyone except for Cooper. Everyone else had no clue what I felt and I was happy to keep it that way. My relationship with him was friendly, fairly close, and he didn't seem to think I was acting weird at all. Probably because he had no basis of comparison, of course, _but_ Lindsey and Rudy didn't notice anything weird either which was good.

Not that they really had a decent basis of comparison _either,_ but still.

Cooper, on the other hand, knew and _wouldn't leave me alone about it._

Before that can turn into an argument, however, since I _know_ she thinks she's justified in having nagged my ear off about it for a year, _moving on._ To the good part, y'know?

Due to a tip that Lindsey had managed to dig up at a far higher price than any of us had thought was reasonable, but had been necessary if we wanted the information, we were about to head out to Russia.

Namely, to the Krack Karov Volcano―Clockwerk's old lair of doom.

The ruins of said lair were long since lost in the molten lava continuously bubbling at the base, but a new structure had been erected there in recent months. Something more suited to a smaller, more reasonably sized animal like myself or the rest of my team and high enough above the lava that unless the thing straight-up erupted, it wouldn't face any real issues.

Our informant had, reasonably, refused to tell us their name, and we allowed it primarily on the basis of his name being a liability to him. We wouldn't, after all, want the Bomber to end up hurting our only decent informant.

That would be bad biscuits, and bad biscuits make the baker broke.

We decided, before Lindsey and I took off to do our drop, that we'd be heading to St. Petersburg first. No real reason as to why aside from setting up a temporary base of operations. After so much time, we weren't exactly rookies at moving from town to town quietly, even if Paris provided our main base, so the stop in St. Petersburg before we headed out to actually lay siege to the volcano fortress wouldn't take long. If nothing else, it would give us a place to sleep and review our information after we did some recon before the actual hit on the place.

After some brief discussion while we finished getting ready to go, we decided that I would drive instead of Rudy. Apparently so that he could do recon with Lindsey when we got there, although I wasn't entirely sure what his driving would have to do with his recon abilities… Not that I cared. I was just happy to be driving my own van further than into the inner city for once.

Cooper, of course, just kept giggling. Said something about how they weren't just going to be doing recon together.

I agreed, of course, but didn't press the matter with either of them. I respected their privacy and likewise they never invaded mine unless they had to.

We set off around sunset in order to avoid most of the police in the city, although they weren't likely to be an issue anyway. They were used to my van and probably wouldn't bat an eyelash at me leaving the city _again_ like I seemed to every few weeks for the last year.

Driving past Henry's place on purpose, I caught him as he was getting out of his cruiser. I grinned, waving, and he returned both gestures.

After that, there wasn't another interruption, and I had the vague thought that this whole deal was getting too easy.


	20. A Rumor In St Petersburg

_Have you heard? There's a rumor in St. Petersburg! Have you heard what they're saying on the streets?_

I couldn't stop myself from humming the tune merrily, song stuck in my head from the moment that we had decided to set up shop in St. Petersburg for a while. I'll admit, I was half-happy I still remembered anything from Anastasia, seeing as it was one of my top five favorite movies of all time, historically inaccurate or not. The other half of me was still worried about the feeling I was going to forget everything. I didn't even remember when that fear had cropped up, but it had dug its roots in at some point and hadn't let go since.

After all this time, only a few things had slipped away, but it still bothered me.

I had enough issues having a clear memory already.

I put my musings aside for t he moment and continued on.

_Although the Czar did not survive, one daughter may be still alive―the princess Anastasia! But please do not repeat…_

My humming didn't stop for a while, even after I had run out of other songs from Anastasia. I continued through a few other movies I loved, including the Nightmare Before Christmas, which prompted me to check the date once I got to 'Making Christmas'. Only three days left until said holiday…

So of course I immediately started humming 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.'

It took another few hours to arrive in St. Petersburg, by which point my mind had run dry on movie soundtracks to hum. And we still had to drive around for a few hours in order to find a spot to set up shop, so by the time we finally, _finally_ found a spot I was humming 'Under the Apple Tree' from freakin' _Crisis Core,_ which says a lot about how far my brain had gone reaching for something to hum.

Lindsey looked at me sort of funny while she started setting things up, but I pretended I didn't notice. If she was giving me that look over catching me humming, then she was a hypocrite because I couldn't count how many times I'd caught her doing the same thing.

Though it's always possible she was giving me that look for another reason, I guess.

Either way, once we had the hideout set up, we decided we should celebrate Christmas early, just in case. Who knew how busy we'd be after we actually started looking around? Better to make sure the celebration happened.

My family didn't usually celebrate Christmas, I'll admit, so having the opportunity was… Nice.

We bought a bunch of boxes of hot chocolate, a bunch of food, some sparse last-minute decorations, and separated to buy each other any gifts we were going to buy. It didn't take me long to pick gifts for the others not because I knew any of them very well, but because, well… I suck at picking out gifts and just went for the first thing that I thought they might appreciate.

Usually I'd probably just give them the money to buy their _own_ gifts, but all of us were loaded so it was the actual gift-giving and the thought that mattered.

Which was _weird._

On my way to check out with all of our supplies, I decided I'd go ahead and buy one of those small trees and size-appropriate decorations.

And, thus, we all ended up back in the hideout with a couple of bags each that we closely guarded from the others until we could wrap up the items in wrapping paper or stick them in a gift bag instead. Lindsey put up tinsel and a sprig of mistletoe, and Rajan and I worked on making the hot chocolate and whatever food that needed cooked.

Rudy, for his part, mostly held things for the rest of us and wagged his tail.

When we didn't need him to help out, he worked on wrapping up his gifts to us.

Once Lindsey was done hanging up decorations and setting up the tree for me, she went about doing the same, and I took only a couple of moments stuffing the others' gifts into gift bags because I suck at wrapping gifts almost as much as I suck at picking them. The easiest one to pick something for was Rudy because, y'know, in spite of all of his intelligence, he was a teenage boy and he was easy to please to boot. With Lindsey, it was sort of a matter of figuring out what she might want that she didn't already have. And Rajan… Well.

If I'd thought about it a little further in advance I probably would have been able to come up with something decent for all of them, but I'd ended up just picking while in the store which severely limited my choices.

Then, finally, with everything set up and the food and first serving of hot chocolate ready, we all sat down around the table and ate and teased each other and, here and there, sang along to the Christmas music that Lindsey put on.

Rudy's tail didn't stop wagging _once_ and I was starting to get worried he was going to sprain it. And wouldn't that be hilarious to have to go to the doctor for?

I could just see it then―"Well y'see, Doc, my friends and I were celebrating Christmas together for the first time since we didn't get to do it last year, and I just got so excited…"

Seemed like Rudy.

I almost snorted at the thought, but refrained until there was a lull in conversation… At which point I teased him about it, and he just grinned and his tail wagged harder. Not deterred at all.

Ah, that was my little brother for sure. Cute dude.

After we finished eating I made another batch of hot chocolate, this time with _spices,_ and we all curled up on the couch with a projector hooked up to my old laptop to watch Christmas movies.

Then, since none of us wanted to wait until morning, we passed our gifts around to each other and opened them after I made a third batch of hot chocolate.

I received a coat from Lindsey, a new laptop from Rudy since Lindsey had long-since commandeered my old one, and a pile of _very_ nice loot from Rajan. Lindsey got some assorted tech and electrical components from the three of us, which made her laugh, but she nonetheless immediately started brainstorming on what to do with the new items. Rudy got almost a full outfit, between the three of us―a coat from Lindsey, driving gloves from Rajan, and a scarf from me. And Rajan got a coat from Lindsey, as well, a handheld video game console and a handful of games from Rudy, and a pile of nice loot from me, which made both of us laugh.

We all also sort of thanked and chided Lindsey for her lack of creativity, but it was all in good fun and I didn't feel I had all that much room to talk. Besides―a coat was weather and location-appropriate, and all of us having one and not just a couple of spare jackets and blankets lying around would be great if the others got too cold. I could just toss my coat at them! And, you know, a scarf was weather and location-appropriate too but mostly I'd gotten it for Rudy because it was soft.

After draining our _fourth_ batch of hot chocolate for the night, we all bid each other goodnight and settled down to sleep, since we would need to be in top form to start our newest mission in the morning.

Still, I was both nervous and oddly pumped, so I had a very hard time actually falling asleep.

Thankfully, it only took that same old deep breathing exercise and a few extra minutes for the need for sleep to nag my adrenaline into submission so I could get some rest. I'm not even sure exactly _when_ I fell asleep, because one moment I was awake and the next I was dreaming.


	21. Volcano Venture

Morning came all too quickly, and I wish that I could say that was only the case for myself and not for everyone else.

Lindsey was practically a vibrating pile of nervous energy, Rudy's tail had tucked itself between his legs the moment he emerged into the main room and hadn't come out since, and Rajan's tail was swishing in a way I knew from owning cats meant he was agitated. I could understand all of those reactions, of course. I just tried very hard not to show them that I was just as close to freaking out as they were.

To be a successful thief, one needs to be calm.

… But this was a big job. This was an _important_ job. It was a job t hat could either end in us reigning triumphant over a bomber with our city safe, able to go back to work post haste, or in Paris laying in ruins and our lives crumpled to dust and potentially swept away just like that. It was high stakes, high reward, and I've always had a bit of a gambling addiction but this was _ridiculous._

I forced myself not to shiver at the thoughts of failure and just waited for Rudy or Lindsey to report in, as they'd left to do recon a couple of hours ago.

It had been a tense, quiet couple of hours in the meantime. Rajan and I weren't talking much, not that we really talked a ton anyway, and I don't think holding a friendly conversation was really on his mind at the time. It definitely wasn't on mine, seeing as I was preoccupied worrying my head off about my two best friends.

"How are you so calm?" Rajan's voice, at last, broke the silence.

He sounded disbelieving and maybe even a little annoyed, which was, you know what? Understandable.

"I'm not," I said, truthfully, because I didn't have it in me to sass him at the time, "I'm scared to death… Just trying to ignore it so I can do my job when that time comes."

Resuming drumming my fingers on the table, as I had been before, I saw him giving me a good looking at from the corner of my eye. It was then that he seemed to notice how much I was moving around―as a thief, I'm hardly ever still without reason, but nervous me borders on outright hyperactive. I was, as I said, drumming my fingers on the table, constantly shifting my feet and bouncing my leg, and my tail, well… It tended to twitch, sure, but not this much.

"Oh," He said, very succinctly. "... Guess I was too nervous to notice?"

I snorted, but didn't otherwise reply. I just sat and waited for any kind of contact from my best friends. I wasn't going to calm down until this was over, but it'd at least settle me for a couple minutes if I knew for sure where they were and that they were okay.

After a few more minutes, the radio in front of me crackled and Rudy's voice came through, "Soph! Gonna be back later than we intended. Found a really good spot―can see the whole base from here. Gonna take as many pics as we can."

I sighed in relief instantly. Finally, good news.

"Okay, cool," I acknowledged after grabbing the radio, "Stay safe!"

"Roger that," Rudy said, tone light.

There was nothing else from the radio, and I continued to fidget.

Nothing else to do, really. If I got too distracted this would all just hit me like a bus the next time that I thought about it and tried to get ready. We didn't need that.

"Hey," Rajan's voice broke me out of what was more or less a thought-spiral of worry, laying his hand on both of mine and stilling them instantly with very little pressure, "It's gonna be fine."

His tail was still swishing, but overall he did seem calmer, himself, than he had been prior to the contact from Rudy. And, sure, I wasn't convinced it'd be fine. How could I be? But I appreciated the attempt.

He brought up his other hand when I just kind of stared at him, placing it on my cheek and gently squishing. I cracked a smile, and so did he.

"Listen, even if it goes bad, I know you've got this in the bag." He said, squishing my cheek, "You're small and squishy and too soft on all of us, but I know you're damn terrifying when you want to be."

He grabbed my other cheek, immediately disproving his point of me being scary by squishing it as well and making me giggle.

"You're just saying that," I said, feeling a little relaxed just by the confidence he had in me.

"Oh, no," He said immediately, shaking his head, "No, I'm serious. To use a recent example, you remember what you did to Muggsy when he insulted Sly? _Yeah._ Scary stuff. You're on my list of people I don't ever want angry at me."

I laughed, a little taken aback, and laughed again when he squished my cheeks yet again. "_Where_ on that list?"

"Second spot," He answered, smiling a little sheepishly, "Henry's got the first slot, sorry."

"Dang," I said, snapping my fingers.

Now, I should… I should mention that while I was very amused by the words coming out of his mouth and him squishing my cheeks every few seconds like he couldn't help himself, the part of my brain that wasn't amused or wigging out about the upcoming job was short-circuiting for a lot of teenage-hormone overload-type reasons. Like the fact that he was touching me, and he was only inches away from my face, and I could smell his shampoo, and he was being freaking _cute._

Thank _God_ I have such stellar self-control.

Still, with him right there and sort of breathing in my face, I couldn't help wondering what it'd be like to kiss him. Mind seemingly mirroring mine, I saw his eyes flick down. He leaned a little closer, then stopped.

"Soph," He said, "I…"

He stopped, seeming stuck, and that was uncharacteristic of him. Like… It was _weird_ for him to not know what to say. Or for him to have trouble articulating himself.

After a second he just sighed. Closed his eyes, and I thought he might pull away, but all he did was take a deep breath, open his eyes back up, and swallow. Hard. He made eye contact but didn't move in the slightest.

I tried not to be obvious when I swallowed as well.

"Reggie," I made an effort to sound as calm and unruffled as I could, and failed rather miserably, "What were you gonna say?"

At that, it seemed the tenuous thread of _his_ self-control broke, and he leaned forward, closing the distance between us and pressing his lips against mine. My brain bluescreened immediately, then spluttered a little bit back to life when he pulled back. He looked unsure. And I felt bad for probably giving him mixed signals but all I could do was blink at him while my brain rebooted.

"Oh," I said, lamely, "Uh. Wow?"

Yeah, I know. I'm incredibly articulate. Laugh it up, I encourage you.

He watched me warily for a moment after that top-tier comment before he seemed to look hopeful. "... You're not mad?"

I managed to summon something reminiscent of a smirk and said, "God, no."

I grabbed his shirt to pull him back to me, and he came willingly, squishing my cheeks again as he did so and just smiling the whole way. We kissed for _real_ this time, and I couldn't have been happier. Not only had I not had to make the first move, but we at least seemed to be on the same page here.

I wasn't going to put all my chips on black and assume he actually really felt the same for me, but I could get behind kissing him!

Had my poor little optimistic, overly-romantic Cooper heart soaring, you know? And who could blame me? I'd had a crush on this guy for a year and my poor brain didn't know what to do in the meantime.

Oh, and actually kissing him? It was way better than I'd been thinking it would be before it happened. Just thought I'd say that.

My love life aside, it wasn't long before Rudy reported in again, radio crackling and startling me.

"Soph, we're on our way back. Should be about 30 minutes."

"Alright, be careful!" I replied, albeit a little breathlessly.

Rudy didn't seem to notice, which did not surprise me in the slightest, "Roger."

Rajan smirked at me once I'd sat the radio back down and continued to do so after Rudy had apparently set his radio aside. I fidgeted a little under his smug gaze and tried to summon some small scrap of pride or anything similar.

"The hell are you staring at me for?" I finally asked.

"Small and soft and squishy," He said, almost sing-songy, and quickly ducked out of my range when I made a half-hearted swipe at him. "Are we, uh… Are we like… Official?" He asked, after a moment.

"Do you want us to be?" I asked in return after considering it.

Again, I wasn't putting all my chips on black about this. Even if we were dating I didn't think I was going to. Needed more proof than a teenage boy _implying_ he liked me, you know? Like… Have you _met_ a teenage boy?

"Yes," He said, leaning down and pecking me again, "I _do_ want us to be. But it's up to you."

I forced myself not to get awkward about it. "Then yes." I said, "But let's just… Keep it on the down-low for now, okay?"

He smiled a bit, kissing me again, slow and soft, and I melted a little as I kissed back. I felt more than heard him chuckle at the nervous, unsure way I did it. And after a moment, he pulled away to smile at me and squish my cheeks yet again.

"I'm okay with that." He said, answering my question at last.

He kissed my forehead, then, squished my cheeks one last time, and promptly went back to his seat and got back to whatever he'd been doing before.

He was _good,_ damn. Didn't even seem ruffled.

I knew I must be a disheveled pile of goo, personally. After a moment, though, Cooper delivered a much needed mental swift kick in the shins (with appropriate physical sensation, somehow) to get me back in gear. I managed not to yelp or flinch in response, but it was close.

As Rajan had booted up one of those games that Rudy got him, I chose to grab my laptop and open up a word document to, well, _document_ the events that had just occurred because that was some shit I needed to have ready evidence of for myself later.

By the time that Lindsey and Rudy at last returned to the hideout, I had calmed down completely, finished writing that little drama, and was working on transcribing the Thievius Raccoonus from memory… To the best of my ability.

Understandably, I wasn't having much luck.

"Well," Said Lindsey once she'd dug out my camera from her bag, "Here." After I accepted it and had looked through the most recent pictures, she said, "See anything you can work with in there, Ringtail?"

I looked through the pictures again, setting my laptop aside and grabbing a sheet of paper and a pencil as I tried to arrange a mental map. Nodding carefully once I'd begun free-handing that map, I said, "Yeah." And shut back up until the map was done.

It took a few minutes, and no one said a word during that time.

"Okay," I said, once I was done, "Assuming this is unguarded and doesn't have any alarms," I tapped a spot, "I can get in through here, find my way to the main control room to turn off the security, and let you guys in through here."

Lindsey listened, then nodded her approval, and I knew it was a done deal.

We were going to the Krack Karov Volcano, and there was no better time than now. Any longer of a delay and, well…

I'd break out in a nasty rash of procrastination, don't you know?


	22. Double Trouble

As calm as I may or may not have managed to outwardly appear to my teammates (and brand new boyfriend), I was in truth very little more than a big bundle of nervous energy when we started the van to head for the volcano. Rajan sent me reassuring glances each time our eyes met, but I didn't think he could tell just how nervous I was… Or just how little the glances helped.

Still, it was a small comfort to know I had the confidence of my teammates, and of Cooper.

When we eventually got as close to the volcano as we could without being spotted, Rajan stepped out of the van with me. After ensuring we wouldn't be seen unless the other two came out the back of the van, he pulled me against him and kissed me again.

"Relax," He uttered, simply holding me after he pulled his lips away, "You'll be fine."

I knew there was a chance he was wrong, but statistically there was about an equal chance that he was right. Just in case, I pulled him into another kiss. It hardly did anything to calm me down, but it was, again, a small comfort. I'd take what I could get.

"You'll be fine," He repeated, when we pulled away from each other.

I smiled, just a bit, and likely wouldn't have noticed I did it if he hadn't smiled back. "Sure, sure."

He patted my head, half-teasingly, and said, "Good Ringtail."

I snorted and rolled my eyes, and he climbed back into the van without either of us saying anything else. I stood there a brief moment, retracing my route a few more times to be sure I had it down, since I'd left my map in the van and there wasn't anything that would get me _out_ of the van again if I stepped back in to get it. As soon as I was sure, I turned toward the volcano and started off toward my most likely entrance point.

Waiting there a second, I thought about all the confidence the others had in me, and Rajan's unshaken insistence I would be fine.

I decided, ultimately, that I wouldn't make a liar out of them and took a very deep breath before dropping down onto the catwalk in the volcano.

The instant temperature change just about did me in, making me dizzy and leaving me stumbling against the rock wall to steady myself while I panted for breath in the heat. I'd known it was going to be hot―volcanos were, after all, sort of _known for that―_, but I hadn't expected the reality of it. It likely would have been hellish even _without_ all the extra fur, but as it was I would just have to deal and pray that this weirdo at least had air conditioning in his weird volcano fortress.

Once I had my wits about me again, I slunk toward my entrance.

Looking up at the lone window on this side of the building, I prepared to begin scaling the wall to get to it. Cooper chose about that exact moment to make her presence known again.

"_Hey, Caldicot."_ She said, voice oddly soft, "_Can I steal your attention for just a sec?"_

"Sure," I uttered back to her, mindful of not being too loud but seeing little point in not speaking to her out loud.

"_I just wanted to say thank you,"_ She admitted after a brief moment, "_Not many people would just take my place without complaint like this. I appreciate it."_ And after another brief pause, she spoke again, quieter and almost hesitant, "_But… If you do want to back out… If you want to go home… I can do that. I would happily do that for you."_

At that moment, I had the briefest memory of the lady in white, and her telling me that I would lose everything I had before if I chose to stay in Cooper's place.

And it scared me, because as I've mentioned I was worried about what little I'd already forgotten about my life before this. But, ultimately… Well.

This was something I couldn't pass up. My life had been fine, sure, and I missed my two friends and my parents and my grandma and grandpa and abuelo and abuela, but I'd always wanted to go on an adventure. I'd always wanted to be something more than just Sophie Caldicot. Someone who was important and who could do great things.

This gave me that, and on top of that?

Cooper couldn't do this. She'd made that abundantly clear to me.

And at this point, even if I wouldn't do it just because she couldn't, I would do it because I _should._ Backing out now would be as good as signing a death warrant on all the people I'd met and come to love here.

And also?

I had a boyfriend now, so there was that.

I knew Cooper was serious about the offer, but nonetheless after only a brief moment to consider it, I shook my head and knew she could see it. "I'm not leaving. For a lot of reasons, but… Well. You know what they are."

She was quiet, but her voice was fond and a little louder when she said, "_I'll hold onto your memories for you, okay?"_

I found myself smiling a little as I hopped up and began scaling the wall, "While I'm flattered by the sentiment, I don't think there's much that I'm fond enough of to want you to have to hold onto for very long."

"_Then I'll hold onto the ones you __**are**_ _fond enough of."_ She said, giving me the image of her shrugging, smiling.

And thus, the conversation was over. I hauled myself up to the window that would be serving as my entrance and checked around it for alarms the best I could from outside. Once satisfied, I popped it open and dropped in.

And everything went to hell at about that moment.

This was not, I'll say, because of an alarm, a guard, or even a guest appearance from the bossman himself.

It was because, when I landed and rolled and found myself again somewhat floored by the temperature change…

_Sophie Cooper_ appeared next to me.

Both of us stared at each other, for the first moment or two. She seemed equally as startled as I was, and the way she blinked and shook herself seemed like she might be trying to will herself away. And yet she remained, right there in front of me.

She gave me an alarmed, confused look, and I gave it back to her while shrugging and shaking my head insistently. I didn't know any more about how or why she was here than she did.

And, given both of us knew better than to start in on talking again now that we were in the target's stronghold, we had no other ways to display our confusion.

When my mind caught up with me, I knew we would need to do something if we didn't want her to be discovered by the others. Her suddenly troubled expression told me she was thinking the same thing… And that she wasn't having any more luck than I was with figuring out how to hide her.

I shook my head again, motioning to her as I picked myself up―we could figure it out on the way to the control room, I decided.

So we took off in that direction, synced in a way only two people who have been sharing a headspace for quite some time can be. Both of us were more confused than we had words to describe, sure, but neither of us was willing to let it get in the way of the mission.

Not to mention, both of us were _extremely_ happy with how easy it was to communicate without a word―blending into the shadows, stopping each other with only a look, moving more like one person than two… One would have thought that we'd been doing this together for decades, and yet it was the first time we'd ever actually seen each other in person.

It was convenient.

The control room, regrettably, housed our way out of the awkward explanation of Sophie Cooper.

Sitting in the chair in front of the controls, smiling and prim, was the very stranger who I'd seen fleeing from the Orphanage back when it went down. This time he wore his cloak-hood down around his shoulders rather than obscuring his face, and as soon as I saw his face I _did not like it._

He had amber eyes that, though I hate to phrase it this way, seemed to _burn._ His fur was reddish orange, lips pulled up into a grin and exposing perfectly white teeth with very sharp incisors, and he was _tall._ Even sitting he seemed to tower over both of us, and would have towered over even Rajan, most likely. Uncharacteristic of a fox, but… Well.

That was clearly what he was.

"Welcome, dear Sophies." He said, rather smug-sounding as he cocked his head, "I'm afraid you've fallen right into my trap."

As he said it, the door we'd come in through slammed shut and I heard the locking mechanism slam into place. It made both of us jump, hair on end, and I nearly started snarling right then and there. As it was I ground my teeth.

"Who _are_ you?" Cooper demanded, not looking quite as shaken as I felt, and certainly not as angry.

"I am Keaton." He said, unbothered, "Do enjoy your stay."

And he vanished into a puff of smoke much like he had that day at the orphanage.

I ground my teeth harder, struggling not to start coughing.

"Well, at least he was decent enough to give an answer," Said Cooper, after the smoke had cleared. She seemed unimpressed, mostly.

"Yeah, sure." I said, flatly, "Decent is the word I'd use."

She didn't question the reply, but did lift her brows at the tone.

"My ego just got kicked in the nads." I chose to explain, still flat as I moved past her to look at the controls, "I hate getting outsmarted."

She seemed to consider that before sort of shrug-nodding her understanding.

Examining the controls, I grumbled to myself as I found a button that would likely open the door back up. I really hoped it wasn't that easy―and it sort of was, sort of wasn't, because when I pressed the button I heard a door unlock and slide open, but checking showed it wasn't the one that we'd come in through. It was a different one.

Cooper and I shared a look, and she headed for it.

"I'll check it out. Don't let it lock me in."

I nodded and watched her head on through.

Keaton, if that was really his name, appeared silently―no smoke cloud this time―beside me at about that moment. I regret to say I didn't notice.

But I suppose, to my credit, at least I didn't scream or jump when he spoke in order to announce his presence.

"It must be incredibly convenient to be two people at once." He said, though his tone told me he knew that wasn't at all the case. That we weren't the same person.

I did wince, slightly, at his voice, but otherwise did my best not to appear startled. "Sometimes." I said, trying not to grit my teeth too hard, "Usually it's pretty annoying."

He nodded, as if that made all the sense in the world, and said, "I sense I've insulted you somehow."

He almost sounded curious, and that made me wrinkle my nose immediately.

"I don't take kindly to being outwitted or trapped." I said, flicking a glance at him but mostly keeping my eye on the controls so I could keep him from locking Sophie in that hallway, "I do that to _other people,_ not the other way around."

He nodded again, chuckling as he said, "Well you're being _awfully_ kind to me, in that case."

"Only because you'll teleport away if I try to punch you in your stupid, smug face."

"A fair point."

Cooper's voice sounded in my head, then, "_It leads to some kind of throne room… But I'm smarter than I look, so I'm not going in there."_

_Thanks for the update,_ I thought back at her.

Then, seeing Keaton seemed quite distracted watching the door―likely not wanting to get caught unawares by Cooper―, I decided I wasn't going to miss my chance… So I hauled off and punched him _right in his stupid smug face._

Did it hurt my fist as much as it probably hurt his face? Sure.

But did it feel good?

_Oh,_ yeah.

Still reeling, he stumbled back a bit, and I vaulted over the chair to get behind him, using the edge of the control desk to get some air so I could kick him in the back of the head. If I could keep him disoriented, I'd be able to fight him much easier. I wasn't the tank of the group, after all, and facing him head on would probably result in him flattening me into the metal flooring of his base.

He turned to retaliate, flinging a rather pitiful and sloppy punch at me, and I used what I'd learned from my dad (and from Henry, Rudy, and Rajan, later) to catch his fist and use the momentum and my own body weight to pull him on past me, knee him where it hurt, and fling him back the way he'd come from.

He seemed uncoordinated, like he didn't fight much. It was possible I'd only caught him off-guard and he was actually a good fighter, but… Eh. I didn't really care. I was good at fighting, and thing was?

Inertia is a _real_ bitch when someone like me's around to use it against you, as I just proved to him.

He squeaked when I kneed him, and stumbled into the wall I'd tossed him at right as Cooper re-entered the room. She seemed _awful_ amused as Keaton pulled away from the wall, and only grinned at him as he processed she was there before she gave him a _nice_ uppercut. It connected with a solid thump, and he stumbled away, back in my direction.

I managed, giggling, to corndog him before he teleported away.

That proved too much for Cooper, who cracked immediately and had to lay down on the floor she was laughing so hard. I let her laugh, mostly.

"Really?" I asked, after a moment, anyway, "You're R-O-T-F-L-O-L-ing _here?_ Of _all_ places?"

This just made her laugh harder as she nodded, so, rolling my eyes but overall not feeling all that upset, I decided to wait until she was done… Which took a couple of minutes.

"A corndog?" She asked me, when she was laughing a little less, "_A corndog?_ In a serious fight?" She managed to get up, still laughing, "You just made me entire existence, Caldicot."

I rolled my eyes again, "You're welcome. Now make sure that door doesn't close―I'm gonna see if he went to that throne room."

She nodded, heading to the controls, but she was still snickering and shaking her head from time to time when I left.

A couple of moments of walking led me to the throne room, and as I'd expected Keaton sat on the throne there, nursing his clearly aching face. He didn't seem to notice me as he sent a guard up my way, but the realization he was sending someone to take care of us had instinct kicking in.

I found myself almost immediately on the ceiling, waiting for the guard to pass beneath me so that I could continue watching Keaton. It slipped my mind, in the moment, that Cooper was in the control room some ways behind me. But surely, I thought when the fact crossed my mind, she could handle herself against one guard?

As I watched Keaton, I found myself clinging to the doorframe while the fortress shook. Keaton's eyes flicked to the ceiling, and at last he looked shaken and concerned.

The tremors ceased after a moment, but I was keenly aware of someone coming up beside me.

"I say we skip town, Caldicot," She said, voice strained, "Like, _now."_

With the way the place had been shaking, I didn't want to be here unless it was necessary. And it was clear that bringing the others in was out of the question―the guy had been expecting us. We needed to regroup and come up with a better plan.

So I nodded, and the two of us dropped onto the main floor, right in plain view of Keaton, and booked it in the general direction of the front doors. He got up as if to chase us, but given both of us were thieves and knew how to turn invisible even after being seen, we weren't in any immediate danger from him… Or anyone else for that matter.

We got to the front doors without so much as another tremor or running into any danger, and we paused there. We had yet to think of any way to explain Cooper's existence or presence. I grimaced just thinking about it.

After a second, she puffed out a breath and stepped out the door, seeming to decide she'd come up with something on the fly.

… Only to disappear as soon as she'd left the threshold.

"_Huh."_ She said, confused, back in my head, "_Must have been something unique to the building."_


End file.
